


Her Unknown Past

by ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Absent Parents, Abusive Parents, Azkaban, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Fred Weasley Lives, Gen, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter Friendship, Hermione Granger Needs a Hug, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Hermione Granger-centric, If jk rowling can say the cursed child is cannon then no one I like is going to die in here, Not on my watch, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SO, The Golden Trio, The Golden Trio Era (Harry Potter), and he lives the happy life he deserves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 44,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay/pseuds/ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay
Summary: Hermione was just a normal girl with an abusive father who didn't care about her. At least that was what she thought until one day she received a letter that said she was a witch.But surprises don't end there. After that, she sees herself being forced to deal with the truth about her real parents, a crazy Azkaban prisioner who's on the loose trying to kill her for some unknown and odd reason, and more. Way, way more.





	1. Hermione Granger

Hermione Granger was six years old when she first used magic. That day, she was in the living room, playing with some toys. When she unsuccessfully tried to get one out of reach a few times but her tiny arms didn't allow her to, she stared at it and saw in amazement as it flew to her hand.

That day was also the same day her father first hit her. He walked into the room in time to see her daughter dragging one of her toys to her hands without touching it. Fulled of a rage Hermione would never be able to understand, he walked up to her and hit her in the face so hard her nose started to bleed.

No sign of regret or concern was shown in his father's face as he said in a warning tone, "Don't even dare do that again, you little freak."

Before that day, Hermione always knew her father didn't love her as much as other parents loved her child. She grew up without a loving family or someone who would ask her how her day at school was like at night during dinner, but at least she had someone, and to her, it was more that enough. However, she never did expect her father to hit her, especially not after doing something she thought was an extraordinary thing. After all, she just made one of her toys fly into her hands just with her _mind_! She thought it was brilliant.

She simply nodded, her hand in her nose as she tried to stop the bleeding. It stopped after a few minutes, but even if the blood didn't come out of her nose anymore to stain her white shirt, she still had a weird feeling in the pich of her stomach. After cleaning her face and changing her clothes, she went back to the bathroom to see herself in the mirror.

The moment she saw her left cheek still red due to the slap of her father, she knew everything had changed for her. She stared at her own eyes considering whether she should hold back the tears or just let them fall freely like they were threatening to do so ever since he had hit her. When she heard the front door closing with a slam, she sat down in the bathroom floor hugging her knees close to her chest while she started crying, letting all out.

That night, she fell asleep in the cold floor with her face full of dry tears and nothing in her stomach. She woke up in the middle of the night and left the bathroom to walk back into her room. To do so, she had to cross the living room, in which she saw her father slept in the sofa with a bottle of some brown liquid inside, which she, being the intelligent girl she had always been proud of being called so, guessed was alcohol. The TV was still on and as she grabbed the remote to turn it off, her feet kicked another bottle, this one empty and lying on the carpeted floor. That made her father wake up, just to look at her briefly in the eyes and say, his voice drown in alcohol, sleep and anger, "You're just like your mother".

In any other ocasion, that would've been a compliment, but for the way he said it, full of so much hatred, she knew it wasn't aimed as a praise.

Without saying a word and her eyes unable to fabricate more tears, she simply turned off the TV and walked to her room, where she laid in bed wondering what she did wrong to have her own father hating on her in just a careless way.


	2. McGonagall's Visit

Hermione was eleven when received a letter in her room from a owl. She spent most of her time there, only leaving to go to school, to the bathroom or to eat. Her room, even if it wasn't quite small, looked as if it was because it was full of books. Everywhere you looked, you could only see books. They were either laying on the ground or stacked in shelves.

It was her copping mechanism, she learned through the years. When she did something out of the line and her father punished her for it, the moment it was all over she would run to her room and hide in there with a book tight in her hands to stop her own thoughts. She had a little first-aid kit she had been collecting for ages there for when the cuts or bruises where too painful to simply let them to cure on their own.

The only window in her room was opened, so the owl was able to fly in without much trouble to set a note in her bed, close to where she was lying.

She quickly closed her book and grabbed the letter, checking if it was for her or her father.

She saw her name, _"Hermione J. Granger"_ , written in a beautiful, meticulous letter, and turned it around to see the letter was sealed with wax.

Amazed by it all, she eagerly opened it and took out the piece of paper that was inside.

She rode throughout the lines a couple of times, without actually believing what she was reading was true.

" _ **HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**_

 _**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore** _  
_**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)** _

_Dear Ms. Granger,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. A professor from our institution will arrive at your home this afternoon in order to introduce you to the magical world, as well as help you and your parents with a tour of Diagon Alley. They will also be able to answer any and all questions that you or your guardian(s) may have._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

**_Yours sincerely,_ **   
**_Minerva McGonagall_ **   
**_Deputy Headmistress_ **

After reading it for the fifth time, she stopped to look at the owl resting in her desk, apparently waiting for her to let him know he could already fly back to the place where the letter laying in her lap came from. The owl accepted the pats Hermione gave him with content before flying away again.

She stared at the owl while thinking of what she should do. Her father wouldn't be home until midnight, so with some luck she would be able to met the person who was going to explain her everything without her father finding out. She would think latter about how she was gonna manage to get him to let her go.

She knew she was going to be in trouble, but the desire to know more about her possibly being a witch and being accepted into a school- Hogwarts, apparently-, was worth more that a few brushes and maybe even a cut lip.

She readed the second page, which was a list of things she should buy for the school year- _A Beginner's guide to Transfiguration? Now that looked more interesting that pre-algebra._ She got up and started to get ready for the visitor, because she wanted to cause a good impression.

Her house was always clean, nothing out of place since she herself was the one who always cleaned it, but she still took a look at the entire house -except her father's room, because she wasn't allowed to enter there- just to make sure everything was perfect.

It was close to lunch time, so she decided she should start making herself something to eat unless she wanted to past out of food deprivation, _"It wouldn't be the first time,"_ she thought.

After eating and cleaning the kitchen, she went to her room to change her clothes into the dress she always used when she was called into the social services with her father to tell the same lies over and over.

When she was ready, there was a knock in the door. She quickly threw one look at the mirror and smiled to herself. Her hair was a complete mess, but despite that, she thought she was okay. She looked as good as she could look, at least that was what her father always told her whenever she wore that or any other dress.

She opened the door to met with a woman wearing strange clothes, and a pointy hat in her head that covered the tight bun that was her hair. The woman looked down at her and smiled warmly, her eyes examinating her face a few moments before she opened her mouth to speak.

"Good morning, young lady," she spoke slowly, watching every reaction of the girl carefully. When she saw the kid didn't answer and was still examinating her, she talked again "I'm Minerva McGonagall, deputy Headmistress. It's a pleasure meeting you. Are you Hermione Granger?"

"Yes, I am, miss McGonagall. Please, come in." She stepped into the house again, and talked when the woman entered and closed the door behind her. "The pleasure is all mine. Please, take a seat," McGonagall was surprised to see the girl was really polite and educated, "May I offer you something- maybe some tea or something to eat?" She asked, and sat down in front of the woman when she saw her denying it politely and telling the girl with her head to sit down.

"Where are your parents, may I ask?" She said, her voice full with caution.

"Oh, well... My father is working at the moment, but he said he hopes he gets to met you in other time, perhaps before I leave to school."

McGonagall nodded her head, suspicious at how she reacted when she asked about her parents, and looked at her one more time before talking "So, is there any particular question you want me to answer, miss Granger?"

The girl nodded "Is it..." she stopped for a moment, ashamed of what she was about to ask, but she needed to hear it was actually true and wasn't making things up "is it true I'm a _witch_?"

She expected her to be angry at such a stupid question as her father would have been. She even for a brief second almost closed her eyes expecting a hit that never came. She knew really well it was stupid to had almost acted the way she did, but she couldn't help it even if she wanted to.

"Yes, it is, miss Granger. You're a witch, and Hogwarts will be delighted to have you as one of its studients. As we've heard, you're a really clever girl."

She blushed, not really used to taking compliments. After that, relived that apparently the woman wasn't going to judge her, at least not by her stupid questions, she started asking politely more of her doubts about the world she was about to enter.

The afternoon past really quickly in Hermione's opinion. McGonagall was a really intelligent woman, and Hermione felt like for once she could have a fruitful conversation with someone without being annoyed at their ignorance, like it used to happen whenever she talked with someone her age.

They talked about a lot of things, going from the magical world to Hermione's hobbies, to which she responded with a shy whispered of _"Books..."_ , but that only made the woman smile more as she went on telling her she also loved books, and McGonagall was for the second time surprised by the girl when she talked about books really difficult to someone her age.

But Hermione, McGonagall discovered over the course of the conversation, was the definitely not a normal girl. She was clever, and her passion for knowledge and learning as much as she possibly could was something she hadn't seen in so long. She had no doubt in mind she was at that moment talking to the brightest witch of her age.

Without Hermione noticing due to being really invested in her conversation with McGonagall, it was already past the hour she had set earlier to have the house alone, and her father was about to go through the front door at any moment.

Her father entered the house right before McGonagall had time to leave. He stopped his track when he heard two voices coming from the living room. He got close enough to not be seen but to be able to stare at the woman sitting in his sofa, talking to her daughter. From his sit in the door frame, he felt immense anger start to built up in his chest. His grip on the knob was so hard, he might as well have broke it when he heard the world 'magic' being said in the conversation.

" _Of course_ ," he thought " _those bitches are going to steal my kid from me like they did with my wife. I wanna see them try and do it, though. She won't be one of them_ ".

Through gritted teeth, he stepped into the door and close it, making both turn around. Hermione greated him with a look of terrible horror, and McGonagall looked at his face for a moment before focusing on the girl, she saw all the joy had been drowned out of her and her red, liveful cheeks were replaced by a paler tone.

"Hello, I'm Mr. Granger," he whispered, catching her attention again. "now get the hell out of my house and my _daughter_ ".

The moment the words left his mouth, McGonagall knew his reaction would mean trouble to the girl. She has had dealt with angry parents before; muggle parents who simply couldn't understand the magic world.

She took another look at the girl and was tempted to grab her arm and drag her out of that hell of a house, but decided against it, knowing he had the muggle law by his side, whether she liked it or not. As much as she wanted to, she knew she couldn't just drag the girl out of her house and father, because she was a stranger and would look as if she was kidnapping the girl.

"Goodbye, Hermione," the mentioned girl looked up and smiled at her before turning to look at his father and lowering her head again. She walked up to her and hug her to whisper in her ear "be careful, please."

She walked out of the door without another look at him, and her father wasted no time in closing the door with a loud bang.

In no time, her father was dragging her to her feet by her hair. She screamed out and tried to stop the tears, but there was no use when she was forced to look at him straight in the eye.

"Why was she here?" He asked. His voice was low and full of warning, and that was ironically more terrifying that when he started to scream.

"She was looking for Miss Smith, our neighbour, and since she's on vacation I decided to let her in so she wouldn't have to go right back home,"

She was a good liar, he had to give her that. If he hadn't know the woman was here because she wanted to drag her to their sickering magic world, he might as well would have belived her. She had a way with words, there was no lying to it, probably because she spent a majority of her life with her nose stuck in a book. Just like her father, she knew how to get away with things, but not with him; oh, no, not with him.

He holded tighter onto her hair, dragging another scream of pain "You fuckin' liar! She was not looking for miss Smith or anyone else but you!" He screamed, his anger growing stronger each second by. "She's disgusting, her and all of those who are just like her. You should be _ashamed_ of even getting close to them!" He pushed her to the ground and kicked her in her stomach, and he watched in amazement as all the air was dragged out of her lugs.

He did it again without giving her time to completely catch her breath, and he felt one or two of her ribs breaking by the force of his foot.

He hit her in the face a couple of times, his fists almost covering all her face in every punch.

He dragged her back to her feet when her nose and lip was bleeding, a black eye already forming in her face.

"Please..." her voice was low, quiet, full of pain "Please, _father_..." she begged him to stop, but she got the opposite reaction she was hopping for. She was pushed to the ground right next to the sofa just half an hour ago she was sitting at enjoying some quality time with the woman who started the range in her father.

He hit with so much force he had to stop for a while because his vision was black from the anger. The girl was trembling in the ground. Her mouth tasted like blood, and she would have let out a sigh of relieve when he stopped hitting her if it wasn't for the fact that her entire body hurt like never before.

"Don't fucking call me father," he whispered before leaving.

For a few minutes she just lied there, trying without success to regulate her breath. Everything hurted, and it hurted more when she tried to breath to catch her breath.

She raised a hand and got it on top of the cushions, trying without success to get up. After a few tries, she gave up and simply lied on the floor again.

Hermione rested her hands in her chest, feeling her vision going black while her breathing slowed down more that before; feeling her heartbeat slowing down up to a point she couldn't hear it in her ears anymore, and she pressed her hand harder into her chest to make sure her heart was still beating. She thought she was about to die, and didn't feel a slight feel of fear, just gratefulness.

 _"Maybe I'll get to met my mummy when I die,"_ she thought, and with that she closed her eyes, ready to embrace death like a couple of old friends would do.


	3. The Wand

Hermione managed to stay alive, even though she didn't know how she did. She woke up the following day still lying in the floor and felt better than she had in a long, long time, which was quiet strange.

She decided then, that it was her second chance. She would go to Hogwarts and would enjoy life there, which she guessed wasn't going to be as bad as life in her house, with _him_.

The days passed by, and her father was barely at home, and when he was... Well, let's say Hermione was pretty glad her father left her alone for the majority of the day, and nights too, sometimes.

She preferred it that way. It gave her a chance to read over and over the book she had borrowed from McGonagall the day she visited. She didn't wanted to take it at first, because she hated when people used her books and gave them back broken or never cared to give them back at all. But the woman insisted, saying she would like to read something magic related before she could go to Diagon Alley to buy all her things.

So she took the book and treated it as if it was the most valuable book in the entire world. And to her, it was. No one had even gave her a book before, but even if they had it would've never been as interesting as she found **_Hogwarts: A History_**.

It was August the 31st when a gigant man knocked at her door. Hermione almost passed away when she saw the man, triple her side with big, black bear. He reminded her of a pirate, a strayed one. She almost asked, but didn't have time because the man, in a funny accent, started talking.

He got out one of his many pocket a piece of paper and started reading it "'m 'ere fer Her-Her... Miss Grange'. Is tha' you?" She nodded her head a couple of times, and the man gave her the warmest smile she had even received in her short life. "Fantastic!" He walked into the house without invitation whatsoever and it gave Hermione the chance to see there had been a boy standing behind the man all along.

"Hey," she said, making the boy jump a little. He was wearing baggy clothes, _really_ baggy clothes. It seems as if they were bought for someone much much bigger, so much he had to hold his big pants with a belt. He had raven hair and green eyes, covered with some broken glasses hold together by tape.

"Hi," he answered, not quiet looking at her. She was glad, because she didn't want him to see the bruises in her face.

"C'mon now, kids," the man said. "We ne'd ter get yer things, Miss Grange',"

"It's Hermione, sir," she said, noticing he was calling her by her last name because he couldn't pronounce her name "and may I ask, who are you and what are you doing here, in my house?"

"Oh rig', my bad. 'm Hagrid, and he's 'arry Potter," his voice went low when he said the boy's name, as if she should know who he was talking about, but she didn't, and Harry felt relieved by that. She turned around to look at the boy and smiled warmly and, realising the boy was probably shy, decided to let him be, not wanting to make him feel more uncomfortable than he already was.

"I'm the Keeper o' Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Albus sent me to get ye to buy yer things fer school," he explained. "Take all yer things and come with me, Hermione," his pronunciation was a bit off, but she smiled and nodded her head nonetheless.

She knew it was dangerous. A big, big man with a kid with clothes that definitely weren't for him who looked mistreated at home had showed up into her house to take her with them? It was mental, and more mental was the fact that she was more than willing to go with them; she knew it was better that than staying with her father. All mostly because next day school started and she was gonna need someone to take her to that boarding school, since she didn't know where it was or how to get there, and her father definitely wasn't going to help her out.

She grabbed some of her clothes and put them in a bag, along with multiple books. She let out a sigh when she realised she didn't have space to fit all her books in. Hagrid realised it and offered her a trunk, in which then she could fit all her books and clothes, with some space left to put on her things for school. In top of all the little clothes she took with her, the book McGonagall gave her rested between it to make sure it wasn't going to get damaged during the trip to wherever she was going to.

"Yer ready?" The man asked, looking at her from the door of her room.

She looked at him and smiled "Yes, sir, I am. Thanks for the trunk, I really appreciate it."

Hagrid was thankful for being so tall at that moment, because that way Hermione couldn't see the blush in his face. He was flattered that a girl was treating him with so much respect, since through his life not a lot of people would even acknowledge him if it wasn't for his height.

"'kay, let's go,"

And with that, they left her house. She didn't even turned around to look at it, not feeling even a bit of regret or pity for leaving that place until next summer.

* * *

They went to a tavern called  _Leaky Cauldron_ -neither Harry or her had an idea of how they even managed to get there without getting lost-, in which a lot of people seem to recognise Harry and shook hands with him. The majority of the time Harry stayed close to Hermione, who was the only normal person in the entire bar, in his humble opinion.

She stood close to him when they greeted who apparently was going to be one of their new teachers- the Defense Against Dark Arts one, told them Hagrid. Whoever he was, Hermione didn't trust him. She would bet a galleon -even if she still didn't know exactly how much was it in muggle money- that he was two faced.

They made their way through a brick wall and she tried to not past out of amazement when she saw the other side of the wall. It was simply amazing.

The odd trio went to Gringotts Bank and Hermione waited for them to get their things while she exchanged all the money she took from her father's room that morning -it probably was one of the only times she had seem the inside of it, and she honestly didn't like it at all. Good thing he had plenty of money there, and even better that she wasn't going to see him in a long time, with a bit of luck.

They bought the things that were in the list that was sent along their Hogwarts letter, even running into a blonde boy. Both kids agreed he was annoying and that they didn't like him - _at all_.

Hagrid then bought the boy an owl, because it was his birthday apparently. Hermione gasped at it, telling him happy birthday and starting quickly to thing of something she gift him. She knew Harry just for today, but for the way she acted, he looked like a nice, yet scared kid. She liked him; she could see a bit of her in him.

Their last stop was Ollivanders, in which you could get your own wand. That made both Hermione and Harry excited, and they entered alone while Hagrid waited outside with all their books and other things they've bought.

Harry went first, and he tried a few before he got one. The man, who was the owner of the place, told him something about his wand having a twin. _Honestly_ , it all seem way to complicated, it was just a wand.

"Now, now..." said the man looking at her "what's your name, dear?"

"Hermione Granger, sir," she talked calmly, while Harry was at the front of the shop looking at his wand with a look of complete adoration.

"Let's see... Which one is your wand hand?"

"The right one, sir," Hermione answered.

The tried a few wands and, just like with Harry, nothing happened. Ollivanders did a face of concentration and went inside the shop out of sight, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in a comfortable silence.

"Ah, let's see this one," his voice sounded quiet far, but in a moment he was behind the counter again. The wand was brown, decorated in the handle with rots-like designs.

The moment she touched, she felt a rush going through her entire body. "I think this is the one, sir" she said.

The man smiled "That's a really especial one, young lady," he told them "made of vine wood, 10¾" long, and possesses a dragon heartstring core. The dragon which they got the heartstring core from was said to had Salazar's blood in it," he looked at the boy and smiled "would you mind giving us a second, mr. Potter?" he asked gently.

"I'll be outside with Hagrid," he told her with a little smile, and left.

"You see, this wand had been in my family's possesion for many years... It is really powerful, miss. How curious that is, now that I think about it, that yours, just like Potter's one, had a sister; someone from the Rosier family had the other one."

"Had?" she interrupted him.

"Yes... You see, the woman who had it- Kaitlyn Rosier, disappeared 1981 shortly after _You-Know-Who_ was defeated."

 _"_ I know who- _who the hell do I know? How am I supposed to know who you're talking about if you don't say their name?_ " Hermione thought.

However, Ollivanders kept talking: "Numerous reports leads to believe she's in fact dead. However, when she do was alive, used a wand with a heartstring core inside of it just like yours. I still remember when I gave it to her: she was just a kid, like you, and I was relied I was going to finally get rid of one of the two wands that had been in the back of this shop for so long. After that, whenever someone came in and had difficulties choosing one, I would gave them this one to try. No one felt anything, except from you," he smiled, looking at Hermione in the eyes "Now, tell me girl, are you sure your last name is Granger?" his question left her so stunned and shocked she took a minute or two to answer.

"Quiet positive, sir" she said. It was true. She was her father's daughter, or else he wouldn't have take her in and let her stay, since he hated her, especially her magic side.

"All right then," he said, not believing for a moment what she was saying.

"How much will it be?" She asked, looking in the bag she bought for the purse with all the money. She wanted to change the subject, it made her uncomfortable thinking maybe she was adopted; she didn't wanted to think about it, not at that moment in Ollivanders nor when she left and was alone. Her mind was already going crazy trying to assimilate everything, she didn't want more worries to stack.

"Nothing," he said "I should pay you for finally letting me and my family get rid of it. It had caused us some troubles during the years."

What troubles he was talking about, Hermione had no idea. She just gave him a kid nod and said her farewell, leaving the place.

It was a pleasure, _miss Granger_." She heard behind her.


	4. The Sorting Hat

Harry and Hermione made their way into King's Cross station the following day. They got together pretty well, and spent the previous night a handful of hours talking until they were so tired they couldn't keep their eyes open. Harry told her about his life with the Dursleys, and Hermione listened with interest for the first time in the boy's life.

She was right when she thought they were pretty alike. Even if she didn't exactly tell him about how her father treated her, she mentioned how their relationship wasn't the best. And Harry, judging by the few bruises in her face, understood what she ment.

Hermione was happy. She finally had someone who understood her, and she honestly couldn't ask for more.

They sat in the train and Hermione got out one of the books from class, starting to read it and pausing periodically to tell Harry something she found interesting. The boy on the other hand was reading a book tittled  _Quidditch through the Ages_. It was Hermione's birthday gift.

She didn't understand nothing about that sport nor felt the need to do so, but the moment Hagrid told them about it, Harry's green eyes almost jump out of his face from the excitement.

Their bubble of calm was broken by a redhead entering the place a few minutes after the train started moving. He asked if he could sat down there with them and Harry nodded his head, making a little bit of his messy hair moved enough for the other boy to see it.

"Wow," he said, quickly sitting down next to him and ignoring completely Hermione. "You're _Harry Potter_!"

"Er, yes" the green-eyed boy looked at the girl for support, who closed her book loudly and stared at the ginger.

"Would you mind keeping it quiet?" she asked, and saw from the corner of her eye Harry was trying to hide a smile "You're making him uncomfortable, so please stop."

The boy closed his mouth looking at the girl, but said nothing else.

Soon, a lady came in with lots of candies and chocolates. Harry got a bit of everything and he started eating it with the boy. He offered some to Hermione, but she declined.

"You got some dirt on your nose, did you know?" said the girl "right there," she pointed at her own nose looking at the pair of blue eyes that starred back at her with annoyance.

He quickly cleaned his nose and looked at the girl with an angry face " _Who_ are you?" he asked finally.

"I'm Hermione Granger, and you are...?"

"I'm Ronald Weasley," he said, with his mouth full of food.

She made a face, disgusted by his modals "Pleasure," she said, even though she didn't meant it at all.

* * *

They got to the school in boats - _honestly_ , out of things, boats in the rain crossing a lake at night, she thought- and soon they were entering the place to start the sorting ceremony.

Harry looked at the cealing when all the first years started doing so, and was shocked when he saw the night sky.

"Its bewitched," Hermione whispered to him. "They did it with a charm that makes the ceiling look like the sky outside" he nodded and gave her a little 'thank you' look, to which she returned with a smile.

An old hat was resting in a tree-leged chair. After a few moments when everyone went quiet, it started singing.

 

> _"Oh you may not think I'm pretty,_  
>  _But don't judge on what you see,_  
>  _I'll eat myself if you can find_  
>  _A smarter hat than me._  
>    
>  _You can keep your bowlers black,_  
>  _Your top hats sleek and tall,_  
>  _For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_  
>  _And I can cap them all._  
>    
>  _There's nothing hidden in your head_  
>  _The Sorting Hat can't see,_  
>  _So try me on and I will tell you_  
>  _Where you ought to be._  
>    
>  _You might belong in Gryffindor,_  
>  _Where dwell the brave at heart,_  
>  _Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_  
>  _Set Gryffindors apart;_  
>    
>  _You might belong in Hufflepuff,_  
>  _Where they are just and loyal,_  
>  _Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_  
>  _And unafraid of toil;_  
>    
>  _Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_  
>  _If you've a ready mind,_  
>  _Where those of wit and learning,_  
>  _Will always find their kind;_  
>    
>  _Or perhaps in Slytherin_  
>  _You'll make your real friends,_  
>  _Those cunning folks use any means_  
>  _To achieve their ends._  
>    
>  _So put me on!_  
>  _Don't be afraid! And don't get in a flap!_  
>  _You're in safe hands (though I have none)_  
>  _For I'm a Thinking Cap!"_

When it finished singing, everyone started cheering and clapping. With that, the ceremony began. A few kids went and sat in the chair, each getting sorted in a different house -Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravencraw and Slytherin.

"Granger, Hermione" called McGonagall, giving her a small smile before returning to her serious self.

She sat down and the woman put the hat on. To her completely amazement, she could hear the hat talking to her in her mind.

"Well, look who we have here... You're truly a riddle waiting to be solved. Now, now, what house should _I_ put you in?" The hat went quiet for a few seconds "The logical answer is, of course, Slytherin since-"

"But I don't want to be in _Slytherin_ ," she said, because of all she's heard, they were pretty snob, and she _hated_ snobs.

"Oh, you have a temper, I like it. You would do great in any house, really. Ravenclaw, then? You are really intelligent, as far as I can tell. But no," he stopped her before she could start talking "Intelligence doesn't mean everything to you; you're intelligent but think there are more important things to look up to. Maybe you'll do better in Hufflepuff. Unlike your ancestry, you have a good heart, you like to help people despite what kind they are." The hat again went quiet "But your heart is as kind as it's brave. You dare yourself with every situation, as I can see... Oh, yes, you face each test life has put into you with bravery. Well, I guess you're going to..."

" _Gryffindor_!" The hat screamed out loud, and the mentioned table cheered out loud, happily.

She walked up to the table and sat down, with a smile on her face. She waited eagerly for Harry's turn, and smiled when she heard he was in Gryffindor, just like her. He walked to the table and sat down by her side, smiling at her significantly.

"It almost put me on Slytherin!" He said almost laughing, getting the twin Weasleys' -George and Fred, they tell her- attention.

"Really?" On of them askes him, but with all honesty she didn't knew which one did.

"Yeah."

"It almost put me in Slytherin too!" she told him, the Weasleys twins looking confused by it.

"You? In Slytherin?" Another Gryffindor boy asked her "But you're a muggleborn, you wouldn't fit in there."

She raised her shoulders "The hat said it was the most logical option."

The conversation ended there, no one mentioning more of it because the boy that was in the train with them got sorted into their house, making the entire table cheer in joy.

" _Another_ Weasley into Gryffindor, how surprising." Said a girl laughing.

The three kids sat together, with Harry in the middle, and started eating, making Hermione feel disgusted by the way the ginger ate.

" _Honestly_ , haven't they teach you to close your mouth while eating?"

And with that, an argument started between both of them with Harry in the middle trying to eat as much as he could.

 _"Maybe this is going to be a good year, after all"_ she thought when she was in her room, and for the first time in her life she was looking forwards to another day.


	5. Friends

Hermione was intelligent, no one would dare to say otherwise. The kind of intelligent to focus on a trapdoor when there's a three-headed dog about to eat you alive. And even more intelligent than that, because she knew within a few seconds the dog had a purpose in there- it was protecting something. What? She didn't knew - _yet_ , but in no time she would know, without a doubt. She believed in herself, even if no one else ever did.

With the rush of almost dying, she never stop to think about the consequences of almost getting caught until she was back in the common room with the other three boys- Neville, Harry and, _of course_ , Ronald Weasley, who always pissed her off to unknown limits. She was angry. _So_ angry.

She couldn't believe how careless the boys actually were, letting themselves be in trouble so easily avoided, and dragging her into it too. Because she cared about Harry, and Neville too; and Ronald was annoying, but still, she wouldn't have enjoyed seems any of them getting expelled.

But _still_ , she was so angry.

She couldn't help but worry about what would've happened if they got caught entering the room Albus Dumbledore warned the entire school to not enter at any circumstance. Or simply walking around the castle at night when they were also told to not do so, especially not alone without adult supervision. They could have been in _so_ much trouble. Oh Merlin, they maybe could have end up in a really bad position.

She hated it. Hated that strange feeling in the pit of her stomach for the thought of breaking the rules. It's not that she had never break the rules before -she had spent lots of nights awake past her bedtime under the covers to read some book she was too involved with to sleep- but doing what they just did, it was completely different.

After a few minutes of the boys talking, and her interrupting just to answer the unsaid question - _what was that dog doing in Hogwarts_ -, she decided she needed to go to bed and sleep her fear away. Neville had left already, still shaking from the night's events, so it was just the three of them in the entire Gryffindor common room. In the night, without studients around it talking cheerfully, and the fireplace off, it felt twice as bigger and way more colder that it usually felt.

"Now, if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed- or worst; _expelled_." she said, the venom in her voice making clear she was, in fact, really pissed.

Neither boy said nothing, just stared at her until she climbed the stairs to the girl's bedrooms and disappeared from their sight.

And it was true, at least it was to herself. Honestly, what could be worst that death? _Well_ , going back to her house and having to tell her father she was expelled from the magic school she ran away to get into. Oh, she'd chose death a _hundred of times_ before having to face that.

She laid down in bed, not caring to change her clothes. Staring at the cealing, in her four post bed, she felt the first tears starting to make their way into her eyes and then face, watering its cheeks.

She didn't knew why she was crying; either because she almost died, because she probably lost her only chance to make friends or because the thought alone of going back home so early and because of getting expelled for breaking the rules made her more scared that she had been back in that room with that dog.

She would jump into one of its mouths before facing him again, she was sure about it.

And with that thought going through her mind, both scaring and soothing her, she fell asleep.

* * *

 Hermione almost cried when Ronald Weasley called her a friend.

" _What're friends for?_ " his voice, that usually annoyed her, sounded so warm it kind of gave her chills. And, even if Ron tried to make it seems as if he didn't care, he did care about it.

She started the afternoon crying in the bathroom because she thought they hated her, and moments later they have come all the way down to the bathroom she was at to risk their lives in order to save hers.

Life really could be great, and after twelve years of being alive, she was at that very moment starting to realise so.

That Hallowe'en night, on the anniversary of Harry's parents death, they became friends. And, even if they weren't yet aware of it, it would stay that way until they all died; the three of them together, through everything life might would put them through. They would always be friends. And, even if none of them said so because they were too shy and had too much pride to say it, the three believed so too.

Hermione couldn't believe it. She went from always being alone to being with two other boys stuck at the hip wherever she was going. And she liked it. She had spent so much time alone, with her nose in between a book reading about friendship and love that she didn't know how good having actual friends would be like. She liked it, even when they got her in trouble. Because, although she was still scared of going back home, she had a reason to stay alive; she had _friends_.

She was in the library, trying to figure out what that dog might have been guarding under its pawns. She had already finished all her homework due to the next month, but was still busy because she had to constantly remind Harry and Ron to do theirs, and forcing them to go to the library with her to supervise their work -which was awful, and she made sure she reminded them how bad it was everytime they asked for her opinion.

But still, she was happy. For the first time in her entire, miserable life, she had friends. _Friends_ , as in plural. There was more than one person who considered her a friend, not an insufferable know-it-all. _Well_ , maybe they did, but they still liked her.

Her two friends were strange, but she didn't mind. She was strange too. Probably stranger that both of them combined.

While looking for a book, she realised she was happy, because she had people to help her find out what was going on in Hogwarts even if they actually did not help at all.

She decided to leave it for the day. Today Harry was playing his first Quidditch match, and she knew he'd be very upset if she wasn't there, especially if it was because she had spent all the day in the library doing research.

She made her way into the Gryffindor common room to met with Ron -she reserved _Ronald_ just for when she was angry at him, so she still called him that a handful of times- and Neville. Other Gryffindors went with them, but Hermione only talked with the two previously mentioned.

They reached the Quidditch field and sat down in the stairs with Hagrid by their side, ready to cheer out loud for their friend, the youngest seeking in a century.

The match started, and everything was going well until they noticed something was off with Harry's broom. It looked bewitched. She searched the entire place while Ron was complaining - _How bloody unfair! Those Slytherins are the worst, really!_ \- and stopped at the professor's row. There she saw Snape murmuring words while looking directly at Harry, and Professor Quirrell acting strange, too. But, when he wasn't acting strange, with his turban tight around his head so hard it sometimes looked as if it was obstructing the current of blood, his strong smell of garlic and the way he looked at Harry and her? Especially how something inside her twisted whenever he turn around. It almost felt like there was someone she knew behind all that cloth-

But she didn't have time to think about that, though, because Harry needed help or else he would fall and probably break a few bones or his neck.

She quickly sneaked into the back of the teachers seats and, when she was certain she was behind Snape, she did a quick spell to set his cape on fire. The commotion it created gave her enough time to go back with Ron and see Harry regaining composure and start seeking for the golden snitch again.

After some time, he did. He found the golden snitch, which earned his team a hundred and fifty points and made them winners.

And she couldn't be happier, even when Quirrell stood up and turned around and felt again that weird feeling.

But, she thought, who cares, we've win the match against Slytherin. And she was happy.

She was happy, and had _friends_.


	6. Going Back Home

Quirrell was the bad guy all along. Harry was so sure Snape was the one, that she believed so herself.

So, when she made her way back to the nursery with Ron almost passed out next to her, she only could think about Snape. Snape, the one who bewitched Harry's broom to make him fall. Snape, the one who treated them and every Gryffindor with venom everytime they breathed. Snape. _Hold on_ ; Snape, the one who bewitched Harry's broom? Quirrell was kind of suspicious that day too. And the fact that everytime he'd turn around she would feel something- _no_ , someone looking right at her, right through her, as if they were examinating her... She felt something at the pinch of her stomach at the mere thought. Something that told her to go back and get Harry, because it wasn't Snape who was doing all of this, but someone else more powerful and dark.

But she swallowed that feeling and held tighter onto Ron, who was not conscious nor strong enough to walk without her help.

She knew Harry could do this. He had to. Or else, she wouldn't be capable of living with the regret. _Harry is strong_ , she told herself more than a few times while she was walking with Ron.

Hermione and Ron made their way into the nursery and, shortly after, Harry was being carried there too, in the bed next to hers and past out.

She felt relieved, but when Dumbledore told them what he did, what _Quirrell_ did, she went to the bathroom and threw up.

After that, she knew she would be facing a lot of dangers just for being Harry's friend. She knew it, she knew she was a target, that she had been a target the moment Ron said they were friends and Harry nodded with a smile, but she didn't care. At least not enough to leave him alone with his ginger friend who would follow him through everything and more. She didn't because after that day, and after the night of Hallowe'en with the Troll, she would follow him too wherever he would ask them to go. And she knew Harry would follow them too.

They would never leave each other alone. Because they were friends, and they were loyal to each other. The hat did chose well after all.

* * *

The summer came and with that, the fear she had been trying to avoid all those months.

A day before the course came to an end, McGonagall called her into her office. She was tense at first, knowing she was going to be scolded for what she did when she tried to protect the Philosopher's stone with Ron and Harry. Instead, she was greeted with a kind and concerned smile.

"Hello, miss Granger," McGonagall said. It was no secret to the entire faculty that Hermione was her favorite student, she had always been since the day she visited her at her house and showed so much fascination for her class, but she always tried to hid it under her usual, bored face. "Please, take a sit."

Hermione did as told "Why did you called me in, professor?" she asked politely, as she always did when talking to a professor or any adult.

"I did because I wanted to ask you something," she said. "Know we're in confident, miss Granger, and I will not judge you for anything if you decide to answer. Is it alright?"

"Er, yes, I guess" she said, getting more tense as the seconds went on.

"Does your father mistreat you in any way?" her usual monotone voice was replaced by a concerned one.

Hermione tensed like a stick the moment the words left the professor's lips and she assimilated them. Her father had always told her she should always deny it if someone asked her, and she had always done as she was told. But her father was far away, and McGonagall wasn't going to tell her it was her entire fault like her did- because she wouldn't, _right_?

"Uh, maybe?" her voice was nothing like the one full of confidence whenever she answered a question in class.

McGonagall smiled at her with sympathy. "It's okay, miss Gran- _Hermione_ ," it was the first time her favorite professor had called her by her first name, and she couldn't help the blush that creeped into her cheeks "I just want you to know you're not alone and that in any way this is your fault, okay?"

"Okay..." she tried hard to contain the tears. She was brave, a Gryffindor, she _couldn't_ cry because of that. Crying was for the weak, as her father always said, and she had felt weak all her life, until she came to Hogwarts. She wasn't going to crying, no, she wasn't.

"Hermione, it's all okay. If things get worst... You can always contact the school and headmaster Dumbledore and I will take care of it. Just know you are not alone."

No one had ever told her that in her entire life. Probably because she was in fact alone before and no one cared if she felt like that, because it was the only true feeling she had ever had. But now she was in front of her favorite professor, and she was telling her was not alone, _and_ she had friends.

A single tear ran down her face before she got up and walked out of the door, stopping just briefly to say "Thank you a lot, professor. _Really_ , thanks," without looking her in the eye.

She cried in her room, because she had friends and people who genuinely cared for her and because after having all that for the first time in her life, it was going to be snatched out of her hands and back into reality, _her_ _reality_.

* * *

The feast to celebrate the end of the term was boring. Hermione was going through a nerve-racking experience, on the one hand nervious because they were leaving the following day and in the other hand about to snap and knock the smirk out of Malfoy's face if he kept that bratty actitude for a few more minutes.

But then, Dumbledore gave each of the trio fifty points -Harry was gave ten more for, _well_ , almost dying protecting the Philosopher's stone- and Neville another ten. Malfoy's smirk was replaced by a frown, and Hermione mood went from almost throwing a fit in front of everyone, professors included, to being congratulated by almost all her Gryffindor fellows and having the boys cheering at her side, hugging her.

Life felt really good that day.

* * *

It didn't felt as good when Hagrid left her in her house, bidding her goodbye with a warm hug that made Hermione feel so loved.

She promised to write him this summer, since he had insisted in her keeping one of his owls -Slow Feather, ironically the fastest one he had, as he told her with one of his usual kind smiles- for the summer so she could reach anyone at Hogwarts in case she needed to.

Hagrid sneaked her trunk -the one he gave her almost a year ago- into her room along with the owl and left her alone in front of the door. She didn't even knew how he did so.

She took a deep breath, and stared at the oak wood for what felt like hours, but was a few minutes. She doubted for a second if she should just enter like nothing happened, or if she should knock on the door. She chose the second one, and waited patiently for the man to open it.

When he did, they stayed quiet for a few moments, both taking in each other's appearances. Her father looked older, way more older than what a year could to someone on their late thirties. His face was crumble down, dark circles around his eyes. In her honest opinion, she looked like he had gone through hell and came back. _No_ , he _didn't_ look older, he looked tired, and angry.

He stepped inside without giving her another look, and Hermione took it as an invitation to come in. She did so, and closed to door to see her father standing in the living room.

"How was school? Did you learn a lot?" he sounded almost interested, but by the hard look on his face shw knew he wasn't. " _Did you have your fun?_ "

"Yes, father" she said.

"Good," was all he answered before she was back into the hole her life used to be.


	7. Mudblood

Hagrid came to take her to Hogwarts later than he had last year. Apparently, as Hagrid told her, the Weasleys were planning on "rescuing her" with Harry until their mother cut them loose and decided to owl Dumbledore, who sent him to get her instead. In what kind of mess they were getting themselves into without her supervision, she had no idea, but knew the moment she'd see them, they would waste no time in telling her everything.

"How have yeh been?" he asked after he got all her things from her window into his odd motorcycle and was helping her out of that nightmare of a house.

"Great," she lied. Her father had been brutal with her all the summer, taking away any kind of magic book she was reading, hitting her for doing nothing at all, not letting her eat properly... It was as it has always been, but multiplied to make it worst than even: her face, along with the rest of her body was covered in bruises, and she had a little cut in her lip. She had been miserable all summer, and had been counting down the days until she could go back to Hogwarts; she understood Harry pretty well.

But that day, she didn't care, she wasn't miserable, and even if her body was sore and hurt like hell, she was going back to Hogwarts, back with _her_ _friends_ , and that was all that mattered.

"Are we going to Diagon Alley?" she asked, excited to go back to the magic world, where she truly belonged.

"Aye," he said "of course! Yeh need to buy yer school supplies!"

She smiled. A few months with her father were worthy if she got to spent the rest of the year with her _family_.

* * *

Hagrid left her alone while she went into Gringotts to change money, and came back to see him with Harry, covered in dust from head to toe and his glasses broken.

Harry went running out to her the moment he saw her, and they almost fell to the ground because all the force he put into the hug was too much for her, as she was still a little sore.

"A house-elf took away all my letters," he told her when she asked why he didn't reply to her letters "but he gave them back, and I've read them already. His name is Dobby, he said I couldn't go to Hogwarts this year, that it was dangerous."

Hermione rolled her eyes " _Honestly_ , when is it not?"

They made their way to the Weasleys. When Ron saw Hermione, he did the same as Harry while screaming her name, making her blush for all the eyes that were in her for that action.

"Oh, Hermione!" Molly Weasley was a short, lovely redhead, and a proud mother of seven kids, one of them being Ron. "It's so good to finally see you, dear. We couldn't get to meet you when school ended last year. Come here, come here!" Before she knew it, she was in the woman's arms, her hold tigh around her tiny body.

"Hey, how is it going?" Said one of the twins -Hermione would never get to tell them apart- when her mother stopped hugging her.

"Good," she said, overwhelmed by all the attention she was receiving.

"Nice to meet you, young lady," said another voice "I'm Arthur Weasley." he offered her his hand she shaked it uncertained "Can I ask you something?" she nodded her head, tensing a little "Is it true muggles have an special _ointment_ to brush their teeth?"

She nodded again. "It's called toothpaste."

"How fascinating! And-"

"Leave 'Mione alone, dad," said Ron, grabbing her hand. Harry followed shortly after grabbing her other hand and taking her away from the Weasleys and Hagrid, who were all now happily talking except Arthur, who seems pretty sad for not getting to ask more questions.

They made their way into _Flourish and Blotts_ to buy the books they would need for the school year. The inside of it was full of people, mostly middle-aged women with books in their arms and longing looks in their eyes.

Within a few moments, a handsome guy with blonde hair and a charming smile appeared.

"He's Gilderoy Lockhart. Mom fancies him," told them Ron.

"That I do not," his mother said, but moments later fixed her hair and her clothes.

Hermione kind of fancied him, too. He was handsome, and he was writter, apparently. And if there was something Hermione liked more than books was the people who wrote them.

In a quick moment, Lockhart was dragging Harry to the front of the shop to take pictures with him and give him his entire biography.

Harry, annoyed by the way that arrogant man was acting, made his way back to his friends as soon as he could and gave Ginny all the books Lockhart gave him not so long ago.

Hermione smiled at it, because she knew he had done that as a way of helping and giving something in return to the Weasleys, who were always so welcoming without asking for anything in return.

" _Potter_ ," said a voice, a really annoying and disgusting voice "can't even buy some books without making it to the front page" Draco Malfoy's voice was full with venom and jealousy.

"Shut it, Malfoy," said Ron.

"Oh, are you here to look for the second-hand books, Weasley? Bet it must be pretty hard to live in such a tigh budget, uh?"

"Is money the only thing your little, poor brain can think of when you try to insult Ron?" Hermione asked, receiving a dirty look from the blonde.

"Look who we have here, the filthy little-"

"Draco, don't waste your time on people like _her_ ," a tall man, who resembled the boy in every possible and annoying way, spoke putting a hand on his son's shoulder. He had a book in his other hand, covered in leather and completely dark "It's not worthy."

"Don't you dare talk to her like that, Malfoy" said Arthur, but the man took the only book Ginny had in her cauldron and took a closer look at it.

"Oh, Draco, second-hand books? This must be in their fifth owner already."

They both laughed, and Hermione felt her skin boil in anger.

"At least she will be giving it a great use without caring of how it looks on the outside," she said. "Others like your son can't say the same."

The man stopped laughing and looked at the girl with a strange look.

"How dare you, you..." he got closer to her, and it reminded her so much of her father she took a step back without realising it. Ron and Harry stood in front of her, protecting her.

"I said leave her alone," said Arthur again.

"Fine," he faked surrender after a few tense moments. He put back the book with the other leather book he was caring with him. Both her and Harry seem to have noticed it, because they look at it for a second and then looked at each other puzzled.

"Goodbye, _mudblood_ ," said Lucius, and almost everyone gasped at the last word.

"How dare you!" Screamed Molly, and Hermione knew if it wasn't for the books she was holding in her arms she would have already slapped him.

However Arthur had other plans, and grabbed the man by his clothes and hit him in the face.

Both men started fighting in the library, until they were torn apart. The crowd that was there for Lockhart turned around to see what was happening.

They left the library shortly after, with Ron next to Hermione laughing and congratulating his father for _"kicking Malfoy's arse"_.

"Look at Ronald, Arthur!" said Molly "He's going to learn this kind of behaviour is okay!"

"I'm sorry, Molly," he said.

"What did he called me? And why did it make you so angry?" Hermione asked, and everyone went quiet.

"Fancing staying in our house until you have to leave for school? Dumbledore told me you could, and that he would solve everything with your father," Molly said through the tense silence trying to light up the mood, and Harry and Hermione nodded quickly.

They spent the rest of the day buying everything and then went to the Burrow.


	8. The Burrow and The Flying Car

The burrow was fascinating. The outside was completely odd, and Hermione was sure if an architect saw it, they would probably past out for the inconsistency. Her rational and analytic side wasn't even sure how the house was holding itself without falling but then she thought the obvious answer; magic.

They all went inside, and Harry dragged her to the kitchen to show her a clock that told where each member of the Weasley family was at the moment.

She was fastinated to say the least. Everything was so magical, so full of life...

"Ron said it was not a lot," told her Harry "but I think this is..."

"Exactly like a real house should be like," she finished for him, and the raven haired boy nodded.

Ginny showed Hermione her room, where she would be staying. It was weird to sleep with someone else in the same room, as she was used to always being alone at home.

She tried to get her books to read a little, but Harry and Ron came into the room before she could even decide which book she was going to start reading.

"Bloody hell, 'Mione! Tell me you weren't going to read our school books when it's still summer," said Ron.

"I like knowing what I'm going to be doing during the school year, Ronald."

"You have the entire school year to know so, Hermione," she rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Ron and I are going to play Quidditch with the boys," Harry tried to jump in to avoid the argument that was building up.

"Okay, fine," she said grabbing a book.

"No, no. Go outside with us and enjoy some quality time without a book," Ron took her book and set it in the bed.

"I don't think that's even possible, but whatever floats your boat," she rolled her eyes again.

"What bloody boat are you talking about now?" he moaned, tired. In all honesty, he just wanted to go out with his friends and have some fun.

Hermione and Harry looked at each other, containing a laugh.

* * *

"Oh, Harry and Hermione, how good to have you guys here. Are you enjoying your time? Do you guys need something?" Molly's maternal instincts kicked in the moment she saw the two kids whom life didn't seem to have been treated so well. "You both need to eat something, you look so skinny."

"Mom, we were going to go out for a while," complained Ron.

"After they eat, Ronald Weasley. What do you guys fancy, uh?" her tone changed drastically when she talked to the two, not-Weasley kids.

"Uh,"

"Er..."

"Okay. Sit down. I'm going to make you a bit of everything," she was so warm and nice, Hermione almost believed she wasn't real.

So when they all sat down and Molly was busy preparing them something to eat, she told Ron in a whisper "You're so lucky to have a mother like her."

Harry nodded and added "Yeah, she's amazing."

With her back facing them, Molly was hearing it all. She smiled down, knowing in that moment she would always treat them the way she treated her kids.

* * *

They arrived at King's Cross with little time ahead of them. Percy went first, allegating he needed to be there since he was the head boy, even though the twins had stole the pin and replaced with another one that mocked him.

After him, Ginny and Hermione went through Platform 9¾, with Molly right being them -Arthur was working, but waved them goodbye that morning. Then George and Fred went in, but Harry and Ron didn't.

"In what mess are they getting them into?" Molly whispered "Well, be better hurry. Come on, kids, come on now." Her hand was resting in Ginny's shoulder, who looked quiet nervous.

They got into the train with their trucks. George and Fred said goodbye and told the girls they would look them an empty seat.

"Oh, Ginny," said her mother, with her eyes full of tears "I love you, dear. Owl me whenever you can, please."

"I love you too, mom," said her daughter, getting into the train.

"Thank you for having me, and Harry too. It was really lovely of you. I had a lot of fun those days in your house," said Hermione, looking at the woman. Fred had took her trunk with him when he entered the train, so she had no package with her.

"Oh, dear, it is completely fine. It was an honour. The burrow is available for you whenever you need it," said Molly. "Have fun, and take care."

"I will, Mrs Weasley."

"Oh, call me Molly, honey. Please, eat a lot. And take care of my boys, and Ginny too, will you?"

"Of course, Molly," she smiled, and after a hug, she got into the train, and walked to where her friends were.

She sat down next to Ginny, and got from her trunk the few books she hadn't read yet.

How calmly everything was when Ron and Harry weren't there with her telling her to stop reading so they could talk.

Now that she thought about it, where the hell Harry and Ron were at?

* * *

Where they were? Driving a bloody flying car to get to Hogwarts, instead of waiting for Molly to get them there in another, legal way. They were something else, without a doubt.

 Professor McGonagall caught them along with Snape and where taken to the Headmaster's office -but Merlin knows why, they didn't get expelled-, as they told her when they arrived at the feast with sweat running down their foreheads and Ron's wand broken.

Good thing she had time to herself in the train, or else she would already be scolding them for everything they did. She would, but not in front of everyone.

Sh counted down in her head all the rules they had break during the feast. She was tense, but she wouldn't change her rebellious friends for nothing in the world, not even for some normal friends.

"Oh, and let's not forget in how much trouble your father is going to get into if a muggle saw what you so uncarefully did, Ronald!" She started telling Ron the moment they were going to the Gryffindor common room. "And how upset your mother is going to be when she hears about this. _Honestly_ , do you two even think?"

"Sorry, 'Mione," said both guys, with they head down.

This year was going to be hard, with two careless boys as best friends.


	9. Parseltongue

The first time Hermione heard that voice, she was with Ron. She stopped when she heard those words.

_**'...rip... tear... kill... '** _

She followed the sound of it and was met with Harry, looking as concerned as she was.

_**'...soo hungry...for so long...'** _

_**'...kill... time to kill...'** _

"What's going on, Harry?" Ron asked, too concern looking at the boy's face to realize she had the same, strange face in hers.

_**'...I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!'** _

"It's going to kill someone!" He screamed, running. They both followed him.

"Harry, what are you- I couldn't hear a thing!" said Ron, out of breath.

The reached a wall. And- oh, was that...

**THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE**

* * *

They were in trouble, in so much trouble. They were going to get expelled and she would have to face her father and- and she couldn't breath.

She was so tense. Apparently Ron didn't hear the voice, that strange and scary voice whispering, as if it was right behind her; right inside her head, as a part of her. So either he was too busy thinking about how to get away with doing his homework or he did in fact didn't listen and she was going crazy.

But yet again, Harry heard it too. Maybe she wasn't going crazy. Maybe-

"They killed Mrs Norris!"

"Calm down now, Argus," Dumbledore told him "Your cat is just petrified, not dead."

Filch hissed, not believing at all their innocence.

"I'm pretty sure Potter and his friends" said Snape, who had arrived with McGonagall, "were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The three kids looked at each other in disbelieve. She must have past out, because there was no way Snape was defending them.

" _However_..." oh, nevermind.

"There's no however in that sentence, Snape," chimed in McGonagall. "Hermione is one of the best studients in the entire school, her reputation is implacable. If she and her friends say they had nothing to do with this, then they didn't."

Everyone turned at her, waiting for her to speak.

"Ron and I were waiting for Harry to finish his detention, and then we started to walk together to the Great Hall but then..." she stopped and looked at the wall, with a worried stare in her face.

"I see..." said Dumbledore. "As professor Snape said, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

With that, they were dismissed and went to the Gryffindor common room.

There, Harry told them he heard a voice and followed it.

And Hermione, for the first time in her life, didn't knew what to do.

* * *

The second time Hermione heard that voice, it was at the dueling club. It was Harry's voice, but didn't seem like it really was his. It was like a whisper, repeating all the time " _Stop! Stop!_ ", telling the snake not to hurt anyone in there.

Ron, however, was going crazy about it, saying they would believe he was the Slytherin heir and stuff like that while they were going to Gryffindor's common room.

"Harry was telling the snake to stop!" said Hermione, tired of hearing her friend's anxious voice.

"How would you know? He was speaking in paseltongue," said Ron.

"I... Was he?" she was a little shock about that information- did that mean she could speak paseltongue just like Harry? But how was that possible?

"Blimey, Hermione. Yes!" he said. "And again, how could you know, uh?"

"Well," she started, not knowing how to answer to a question she didn't even have the answer "it was obvious!"

"Obvious?" asked Ron. "How was it _obvious_?"

"Body language, of course," she told, more to herself than to Ron.

Yeah, she thought, his body language was showing clearly what he was doing. Besides, it's Harry we're talking about! I didn't hear nothing, I just imagined it because of the tension.

Harry was quiet beside them, his head facing the floor and a lost look on his eyes that told them he was too far gone in his thoughts.

Hermione acknowledged it and faced him, stopping her argument with Ron to do so "Harry, I know what you're thinking," the boy looked at her. "But let me tell you, you're _not_ the one causing it. You're Harry Potter, and you're a good person, okay? I bet you wouldn't harm a fly if you had the chance,"

That made Harry smile, her words clearly changing his pace of thoughts.

"Thanks, 'Mione," he smiled at her for a moment.

"Knowing Parseltongue is not a really common gift, Harry," told them Ron when they were at the Gryffindor common room, still not out of the loop of freaking out he got himself into in the first place.

His voice was low, and a little bit shaky, and his blue eyes, always bright whenever he looked at Harry were covered by a fearful look.

And Hermione knew then she better shut her mouth about hearing and understanding those voices, or else she'd be treated like Ron saw treating Harry at that moment: with fear.

 _"Parseltongue_?" he asked.

"is the language of serpents. Mate, it's a really uncommon skill- almost an hereditary trait," he answered.

"Does it mean...?" she stopped talking, too afraid of continuing that sentence.

"It can't be learnt,"

Oh, she was in deep trouble for sure. Going back to her father and staying with him seem like a better idea than facing this.


	10. Tom Riddle

The attacks to muggleborns were starting to be more common, so Hermione was indeed worried, as she was too a muggleborn.

So Harry and Ron wouldn't let her go alone anywhere. She was going to the library? They went too and stayed there as long as she did, trying and failing to do their homework or taking a nap in the table as she studied. She was going to the Great Hall? They were rushing to go with her. She wanted to chill in the Gryffindor common room after doing her homework at night? They would stay in the armchairs sleeping until she would wake them up to tell them she was going to sleep, and even there, they would kept her company until she was at her bedroom door.

She appreciated the thought, she _really_ did. It moved her, having friends that loved her and cared for her enough to sacrifice their valuable free time to be there for her and protect her. She loved how they acted as if it was no big deal, when to her, it really was. She really loved it. But _still_ , she needed some minutes to herself from time to time.

Harry was being looked down by everyone but Hermione and Ron. People were either scared of him or angry at him, and he didn't knew which one was worst. So having some time alone without having everyone staring at her and whispering felt quiet nice.

She decided to go to the library alone to investigate about the attacks the moment the boys were distracted. Something felt off about all the attacks, and she had the intention of finding out what it was.

And she did find out. She found in a book information about a basilisk, with a few torn pages in it. She took the tore one that had the information about the basilisk with her and grabbed her mirror in between her other hand, getting mentally ready to go to the Quidditch field and tell Harry and Ron all she had discovered.

However, before she could do so, she ran into a girl, another muggleborn, and she stopped her to tell her about using a mirror around every corner.

Everything happened really fast. She heard a voice, _that_ voice again, whispering behind her.

_**'...kill her...'** _

She stayed still, frozen by fear. She holded the piece of paper tighter in her hand, crumbling it in her palm.

And then, the girl fell to the ground, petrified. She tensed, not knowing how she should react- should she run? Attack? Stay still?

**_'...no... not her... don't hurt her... she is special...'_ **

What-

But she got her mirror and looked behind her with it, seeing a big serpent before she past out.

* * *

Harry and Ron were desperate. They needed to find a way to help Hermione, to make her wake up. Without her, they were lost; they didn't knew what they should do.

"Wish you were here, 'Mione," Harry told his friend, with tears threatening his vision. He grabbed her hand, feeling it cold around his fingers. Everything was so simple with her around.

He realised then she had something in her hand; it was a piece of paper. He got it out and Ron was in a moment beside him reading the paper.

"Even petrified, she still solves all our problems," he said, and Ron nodded.

Without saying another word, they both got up and walked out of the nursery.

They had an heir to stop and a friend to revenge.

* * *

Ron was whiter than he had ever been. His mother was in Hogwarts because Ginny has gone missing and now-

**Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever**

Before Harry knew it, they were forcing Lockhart down Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, which was the entrance to the chamber of secrets all this time. If they weren't so worried and angry, the two boys would have stopped to comment how ironic it was; they spent a good amount of that year standing next to it while Hermione made the polyjuice potion and they didn't had a clue.

Everything went too fast. Lockhart was hit by Ron's broken wand spell and that created a explosion that separated the two friends, apart from erasing his memories.

Harry was alone. _Completely alone_. A twelve years old boy against a basilisk. He wouldn't bet on his favour for sure, and he was sure the twins wouldn't either.

He ran as fast as his legs would allow to get to Ginny, breathing for what felt like the first time in hours when he realised she was still alive.

But she wasn't alone. A young boy, attractive was standing there, looking at them.

He was Tom Riddle, the boy to whom the diary Harry had written to belonged to.

Harry finally felt safe after so long. Tom was a nice person, he wouldn't attack them. Maybe he make a mistake in blaming Hagrid but he understood his situation and, more importantly, his desperation for Hogwarts to stay opened so he wouldn't have to go back there. He was one of the good guys, and Harry felt so relived by it.

But _no_ , Tom wasn't a nice person. He was Lord Voldemort. Harry knew if Hermione were there, she would probably be commenting on how stupid they were. He could already hear her voice saying " _Honestly_ , how could've we been so stupid! The answer was right in front of us, Harry!".

But Hermione wasn't there, nor was Ron. He was _alone_ , alone with Ginny past out next to him. And to add more into his situation -which was already crazy-, he was facing a young, teenage version of his worst enemy, Voldemort.

Oh, there was more. A basilisk was trying to kill him and all he had to defend himself was a bird and an old hat.

Great. Simply great.

* * *

How he managed to defend that beast, he didn't know. He simply saw that sword and hoped when they found them there, they could save Ginny and Ron.

But he killed it. Even though he felt dizzy by the basilisk venom, he grabbed a frag and stabbed the diary, killing the young Riddle in the process.

He had never felt better in his entire life.

He couldn't wait until he could tell Hermione about it.


	11. Not Going Home

When she woke up, she was with Madam Pomfrey. The woman had prepared the potion to wake all the people attacked by the basilisk.

"Where's Harry?" She asked her after a moment in which the woman had been checking her vitals and making sure she was completely fine before allowing her to move.

"He got out yesterday," she said. "As always, he and his ginger friend got themselves into trouble."

She went quiet for a moment, thinking the boys could've got into any time of trouble since she wasn't there to prevent it.

"How long have I been petrified?"

"Almost a month," she said, already checking on another boy.

She got out after making sure she could leave and the moment she crossed the door, she saw her two friends walking up to where she was.

"Now, what did you guys did when I was unable to stop you from getting into trouble?" her voice made the boys stop walking and they raised their heads to look at her. They screamed "Hermione!" at almost the same time and ran to hug her.

"Oh Blimey, 'Mione!" said Ron. "You _won't believe_ what happened!"

"You're okay! Wait, are you okay?" said Harry at the same time.

"I'm okay. Now, tell me what trouble you both caused while I wasn't there to stop you."

* * *

The rest of the day, the boys filled her in with all that happened. From the attacks, to the diary, to Ginny and the basilisk. Hermione couldn't believe any of it, and had to stop their monologues to get more information about the subject since they weren't clear enough, too focused on telling the story than the reason behind some details, which on the other hand were crucial to Hermione to understand everything.

On the feast to celebrate the end of the school year that night, they wouldn't leave her side, still talking to her about everything, stopping momentarily to tell her how easier it all would have been if she's been there with them. She ate with a permanent smile on her face, pretending to hear everything they were saying but getting lost in her thoughts from time to time.

Even since she woke up and Madam Pomfrey told her what had happened to her and the rest of the studients in there, it had been bothering her what those whispered said before she was petrified. The voice, _that_ voice so strange and yet familiar, ordering not to harm her. But _why_?

She looked at her friends talking and decided it was nothing.

* * *

While in the Hogwarts express, when she sat down in the compartment, she stared out of the window for a few moments, trying to calm herself down before she could join Harry and Ron's conversation. If they noticed it, they were kind enough to not comment on it -and she was really thankful for it, in all honesty.

"Mom said in a letter this morning you guys are invited to come over this summer," told them Ron, looking at them with hope in his eyes. "She said she doesn't accept a no for an answer."

"I'm gonna need to get Hagrid to get me there, but I'm definitely in if she accepts me," she said.

"Yeah, me too," added Harry. "To both things, I mean," he whispered awkwardly.

They started laughing, neither of the three of them knowing why or what they were laughing at, but it felt so good to finally be allowed to act like the twelve year old kids they were.

And during that time, Hermione forgot everything. She forgot her concern about going back with her father, she forgot how worried she was about the fact she _definitely_ was a Parselmouth and how she heard that voice saying not to hurt her; she forgot everything, letting it all out of her system for a few moments, feeling as relaxed as she had felt in so long, probably since she was born. She also forgot about how sad that thought made her. She forgot everything but how good it felt to have those stupid, but kindhearted boys as her friends.

* * *

The first thing she saw when she got down of the train was Molly Weasley running up to them.

" _Ronald Weasley_!" she screamed, and the mentioned boy swallowed loudly. "How dare you, you young man! We'll talk later," so, apparently she hadn't forgot about the car incident. " _Now_ , where's Ginny?"

The youngest Weasley was with her father already, him hugging her close to him with tears in her eyes.

Molly turned around and ran to Ginny, hugging her too. The entire Weasley family was around her, all of them with concerned looks on their faces.

"Harry! Hermione!" said Arthur when he looked at them. "Thanks for saving my little girl. Really, thank you so much."

"No need to thank us, sir. We didn't do nothing," said Harry, his cheeks as red as hers.

"That you did," he smiled. "We will be forever thankful for it,"

"Harry, Hermione, dears!" said Molly, acknowledging them. "I hope I see you two at the Burrow," she hugged them both. "I will go take you whenever I can, don't worry," she blinked her eye at them, and Hermione fought hard not to laugh at the memory of Harry saying he didn't know how he'd make it to Ron's house.

"Aye, Herm'," said Hagrid, walking up to her and grabbing her trunk. "It's time to go,"

"Time to go home, I guess," said Harry, not wanting to let her go.

"I'm not going home, Harry."

"Yeah, me either."


	12. Letters

Strangely, her father didn't treat her as bad as she thought he would. It seem as he had lost on interest in her, not even caring enough to hurt her like he used to do.

And it both calmed and worried her. She was happy she didn't have to walk on eggshells in her own house, but she was scared maybe that would lead into a worst reaction before she had the time to leave.

A month went by, with casual letters from Ron and Harry asking how she was and telling her what was happening in their lifes, since Ron was in Egypt. She didn't have Slow Feather, Hagrid's owl, anymore, so the only way she could answer them was with Hedwig and that poor, old owl the Weasleys had.

She even received letters from Molly and Ginny to check on her, and the twins too, the last two simply writting something stupid with the mere intention of making her laugh, and they successed each time.

The owls would arrive to her house by her window like her Hogwarts letter did, but Ron's owl was almost blind and usually would end up flying around her house until she stopped him and got her inside her room with the letter.

"Hermione!" her father screamed, scarring her to the point she dropped the book she was holding in her hands.

She got out of her room to see Ron's owl standing in the hat rack. He had a letter in his hands, crumbling it slightly, and an angry look in his father.

"So, you were planning on leaving again, uh?" he asked. "As always, not even telling me. Do you think you're better than me?"

He handled her the letter, allowing her to read it before he started talking again.

**_"Dear Hermione,_ **

**_We're planning on going back to England next week. We hope to see you when we get to The Burrow, if that's okay. We're yet to talk with Harry, but we all guess he will answer us soon. Let me know as soon as you get this and I will contact Hagrid to go get you whenever you feel like, love._ **

**_I hope that father of yours is treating you like you should be treated, honey, or else Arthur and the twins say they're more that ready to give him a leason on how a girl like you should be treated -I'm all in, too. Just say the word._ **

**_If you do get to The Burrow before the term begins, I will make sure you get all your school supplies in time for you to read them, since Ron had told me you like doing it before schools begins -if only one of my kids were as diligent as you, I wouldn't have a constant headache._ **

**_Anyways, love; let me know as soon you as you receive it your answer. And please, take care of our owl, it's kind of old and can't travel this far without getting tired._ **

**_All the family sends their love, and Ron wanted me to let you know he has to talk with you about his entire journey -you see, he's kind of excited about it._ **

**_With love, Molly Weasley."_ **

"You've tell that woman about me?" he asked, his tone meaning only one thing; she was in trouble. "How many times have I told you not to say anything?" his voice went up an octave and she started to feel herself shaking.

"I..."

"You, _what_? I'm gonna tell you something, Jean," he took a deep breath, a cruel smile making its way into his face. "You're gonna message that _woman_ -whoever she is-, and you're going to tell her you're not planning on going to her house anymore. I can't believe you were really going to spent the last month of summer with some strangers rather than your father..."

"I'm not going to do that," she started, feeling for the first time in her life, brave enough to face him. "They're more of a family to me than you are. I know you're better off without me here, so I'm just trying to make things easier to you, unlike anything you've ever done!" she was feed up of him, of his actitude and his condescension. "And you yourself told me not to call you father the exact same day you almost beat me to death!"

"How dare you talk to me like that!" he screamed back. "I've given you a _roof_ all your life, I put food on your fucking plate every single day, and your answer is _ungratefulness_?" he pointed at her. "You do not talk to me that way, or else!"

"Or else, _what_?" the owl flew to her room, annoyed by the screams. "You're gonna hit me? Where's the new in it, uh? It's getting kind of old now, just like you!" she tried to take a breath, but her lungs weren't working. "And yes, you might have done all those things, but you've also made my life a living hell! I hate you!"

After that, an uncomfortable silence fell between the two of them. They both started fiercely at the other, watching each movement and waiting for any kind of reaction.

Her father finally reacted, hitting her straight in the face with so much anger his own palm hurt as well. She didn't fall nor move, just let her face stay turned by the force of the hit. Hermione stood her ground, and slowly she moved her head to look at her father dead in the eye.

"Thanks for proving my point," her voice was cold and low, so drained by emotion it even scared her.

Without saying another word, she got into her room to write Molly her answer.

**_"Dear Molly,_ **

**_Thank you so much for taking your time to check on me, and for inviting me over. I'm really grateful for it._ **

**_Send my love to your family in return, and tell Ron I can't wait to hear his stories, and that I hope he's behaving or else he'd make me feel quite upset._ **

**_As for your kind invitation (which I repeat, I'm very thankful for), I can only say yes, and that I'm already waiting to go to The Burrow._ **

**_Let me know when Hagrid is coming, as I'm already counting down the days left._ **

**_Oh, and let George and Fred know that I loved their last letter, but I couldn't write an answer because your owl took off. By the way, I'm making sure he's completely recovered before he flies off, do not worry._ **

**_With love, Hermione J. Granger."_ **

She let the owl rest for a while, providing him with food and water.

After a few hours, he was ready to go. He kindly grabbed the letter in his beak and took off, allowing Hermione to tap his head warmly before he did so.

She stared at the open window, watching the owl fly away, wishing she could go with him, or simply disappear from that place.


	13. Maybe

Hagrid knocked on her window a rainy day of July. She was lying on her bedroom, re-reading a book when the noise disturbed her. Hermione first thought it was an owl delivering her a letter, but jumped slightly at the sight of the big man in her tiny window.

She quickly walked to it and opened it, giving Hagrid a warm smile. His hair was as wet as his clothes, but the light in his eyes when he saw the girl was all she could focus on. That light, however, turned into a frown when she saw her face covered in bruises, just like it was when she first met her.

He didn't comment on it, simply smiled again. "Aye, 'ermione! Molly sent me to ge' yeh to The Burrow," he spoke loudly, and the girl was afraid her father might hear him, even though it was really early in the morning and he didn't have work that day, so he'd probably stay in bed a little bit longer, she'd always take tha as a chance to read in calm.

"Hi, Hagrid," she kissed him on the cheek through the window, not falling to acknowledge the blush that creeped into his bearded face. "Let me get my things and we can go," she was already walking around her room to grab her trunk; she put in the book she was previously reading and dragged the heavy trunk carefully up to the window, in which Hagrid grabbed it as if it weighted nothing at all.

He set the trunk in his motorcycle and looked at Hermione questionly "A' re'dy?"

She nodded, and with his help, she hopped out of her window and into his motorcycle.

"Let's go then."

"What about Harry?" she asked. "Molly said we were going to get him before we go to The Burrow."

"Change o' plans," he said. "He's already there."

* * *

The boys, as always, got over excited when they knew they were going to see her friend, running to the front door the second they heard the sound of Hagrid's motorcycle.

All The Weasleys also waited at the door, ready to give Hermione a warm welcoming.

"'Mione!" Said Harry, running to tangle her in a hug and start bombarding her with what happened at the Dursleys -apparently he made her aunt fly for insulting his parents, but she couldn't be hundred percent sure about it because he kept talking at a very fast pace and Ron was trying to get her attention to tell her about his journey with his family at the same time.

"C'mon, boys, c'mon," said Hagrid, carring her trunk in his hand. "Let 'ermione bre'th."

They blushed slightly at it, and left Hermione enough space to greet the other Weasleys.

The first one was Ginny, who quickly hugged her and told her she had to tell her a lot when they were alone in her room before the twins dismissed her and did a very synchronized -as everything they did- season of hair ruffling before speaking.

"How is it going, pet?" asked George.

"Did you read too many books this summer?"

"No need to answer-"

"-we already know you're gonna tell us infinity of muggle titles-"

"-while we pretend we understand what you're saying-"

"-but we do not. Right, Georgie?"

"Right, Freddie."

"Welcome," said them at the same time.

The both kissed her cheek and walked into the house, leaving her with a blush and a really bushy hair, more than usual.

"Nice to see you again, Hermione, love," Arthur was up next, and it made the girl wonder if they had it all planned out before she got her or was just how in tune the entire family was -whatever the answer was, it still amazed her to no end. "How have you been?"

"Good, Arthur," as much as she hated calling adults by their first name, it looked as if Mr. Weasley hated it more when she called him by that name. 'Makes me feel quite old, dear', he told her one day. "Thank you for your invitation, and for having me here."

"Oh, my dear," Molly pushed Arthur to get to Hermione. She put her hands carefully on the girl's face to examinate it up close. "Let's go inside so I can fix this, okay?"

Hermione simply nodded, not confident enough with her words.

"Hagrid, dear!" called mrs. Weasley. "You're more than welcome to stay for dinner."

"'m very sorry to decline yer invitation, Molly," he said, cheerfully. Even though the rain had stopped shortly after they left her house (Hermione thought for a moment it was the perfect metaphor of her life in there) he was still wet, shaking slightly because he gave Hermione his fur coat during the drive to The Burrow despite her protests. "I have to prepare maself for, well- _y'know._ "

Molly nodded with a proud smile on her face and got the kids inside while they stayed out for a moment to talk with him.

"Goodbye, Hagrid," she said before she was inside the house, waving her hand at him. "It was really kind of you to get me here. Thank you."

She didn't have time to see the blush that was probably on his face before the boys dragged her inside, starting to fight for her attention so they could tell her all their crazy adventures.

* * *

The days at The Burrow were completely unexpected, and really funny, not monotone like the ones at her house. Hermione wished she could live with Fred and George all her life, because they were so funny and made life seem more interesting, as you didn't know what you were eating didn't have something on it to turn you into a dog or make your tonge grow -apparently they were still working on the last one, but seem like they were making quite the progress.

Living with them was even funnier when you weren't the target of their jokes. They had told Hermione that they would never put pranks like that on their little sisters. While Ginny simply rolled her eyes and whispered that she shouldn't believe them since they had in fact pranked her before, the smile on her face didn't fade for the entire day.

Those pranks help ease the atmosphere of tension created from the general concern about Harry. The man who betrayed his parents and got them killed had escaped Azkaban, and was on the run looking for him.

Harry tried to light things up; he wanted to enjoy summer. Even when the ministry went to visit him and sent some Aurors at The Burrow to protect him, he still focused only on trying to have the best summer of his life, and no one seem in the mood to change it, because after all, he deserved a little bit of peace and fun.

Hermione, however, was worried about him, even if she didn't say so not to bother him. She considered Harry a brother, more family than blood could ever mean, and knowing he was exposed to so much trouble... She couldn't bare the thought of losing him, especially not after the amount of times she had been so close to do so.

But she shook that feeling off, trying too to also have a quiet, fun summer.

A few days prior Harry's birthday, Molly took her and Ginny to Diagon Alley so they could buy Harry a present for his birthday. The boys had stayed and wrote her down what they wanted to get Harry.

Hermione took the money she had been saving that summer (her father, surprisingly, gave her a good amount of muggle money a few days after she got home -he was in an odd, good mood that day but she wasn't stupid enough to comment on it, so she simply accepted it without a second thought), and went to Gringotts to change it, saving a few pounds to give them to Arthur when she got back, because she knew how much he would enjoy them.

She got him a kit to polish his broom. She first thought about getting him a book, something with Quidditch on the tittle would probably do the trick, but decided against it when she imagined him rolling his eyes at it, and Ron commenting sarcastically about Hermione gifting a book.

However, she got herself some books, one of them being a book about The Sacred Twenty-Eight, in which there was some information about Kaitlyn Rosier, the woman that had had her twin wand. When she saw the book in one of the shelves, she couldn't help her curiosity.

When they got to Ollivanders, Molly commented how strange it was that it was closed, but none of them gave a second thought as they made their way back to The Burrow.

* * *

Two days after, they celebrated Harry's birthday together. Hermione didn't miss the teary eyes he gave everyone behind his round glasses. She was almost strangled by his embrace when he opened her present and all the boys and Ginny gasped -Quidditch really drive them crazy, she thought, laughing at their reaction.

That night, after a delicious feast Molly prepared them, she sat next to him in the sofa while everyone was still in the kitchen together, eating and talking loud and cheerfully.

"Did you liked the party?" she asked.

"The best birthday in my life,"

"I'm glad you're happy," the warm in her voice made Harry's eyes glassy all over again.

"I'm happier that I've ever been, 'Mione," he rested his head on her shoulder.

They both spent some time there, his head on her shoulder and hers on his, staring at the fire.

 _Maybe_ , she thought, _maybe life is worth living_.


	14. Bellatrix Lestrange

Things went downhill after that night. The following day, Arthur had to leave early in the morning because there had been some troubles in the ministry.

A tense silence followed after Molly told them during breakfast. Everyone was thinking of Sirius, and- _oh, Harry_.

Hermione, who was sitting next to him, grabbed his hand under the table and squeezed it, trying her hardest to show some support.

Harry appreciated it. He had always been so used to being alone, living the underdog life, that having someone as intelligent and brave (even if she said she wasn't half as brave as Harry was, every Gryffindor would say otherwise) by his side made her feel safe, protected; not alone.

So they ate with their hands intertwined under the table, making Harry more sure of himself that he had ever felt.

Because, at the end of the day, the brightest witch of her age was her best friend, and would protect him, just like he would protect her; at the end of the day, at night, she would be there for him just he would be there for her, no matter what.

* * *

The next day, Ginny woke Harry and Ron hitting them with a pillow and talking about breakfast. When they changed their clothes and went down to the kitchen to eat, they saw Hermione wasn't there.

"She is still sleeping," told them Ginny, already fixing some food in her plate.

Harry went up to the room the two girls were sharing and knocked three times. After staring at his clock for a minute, he decided to open the door.

Hermione was sitting in her bed, her knees against her chest. She had a lost look in her face, and dark circles under her eyes.

"I had a nightmare," she said, voice full of hollow. "It was about-" she stopped herself, a fearful look on her face. She was afraid of being judge by her best friend. She put her feet on the floor, ready to leave any moment.

Harry sat down next to her and put a hand in her thigh, "You don't need to tell me, 'Mione," she hold his hand, still resting on her thigh, and sat there for a few minutes.

"Thanks, Harry," she said when they got up, hugging him.

"You don't need to thank me, 'Mione."

* * *

They were received by the Weasleys sitting on the unusual quiet table. All eyes went on them the moment they entered the room, and their cheeks went red almost in sync.

"Hello, Arthur," Hermione said when she saw him in the table next to Fred.

"Good morning, sir," he said as they sat down in the only two free chairs, with Ron on the one side and Ginny on the other. "How's work going?"

The twins tensed a bit, making Hermione focus on them. Something was definitely going on; either they were putting the best prank of their lifes on them or something really serious happened. She hopped her tongue was about to grow until it met the floor when she started eating, because she really wasn't ready for more bad news.

"Well..." Molly hit him on the shoulder to stop him talking.

"They're _just_ _kids_ , Arthur!"

"They deserve to know, mom," Percy said, as tense as the twins.

"They _need_ to know, Molly," said Arthur.

Okay, this was all definitely strange. Had she woke up in a different dimension in which George and Fred Weasley were serious, or was she still dreaming?

"Bellatrix Lestrange had escaped Azkaban, too," he talked, gaining a disapproval look from his wife. "She took advantage of the agitation Sirius' escape provocated between the dementors and ran away. The ministry is looking for her, just like with Sirius." Arthur told them. "She's really, really dangerous, and is looking for someone, probably to do the same as Sirius."

"Blimey, _another_ crazy ex-convict going after Harry?" said Ron, in an annoyed tone. It was the first time he had talked, since before he was too busy eating to notice the elefant in the room.

"Actually..." started Arthur, looking nervious between the three of them, then to his wife again, Percy and the twins and back to them. "She's looking for Hermione, apparently."

"What?" Asked Ginny, worried.

"How do you know, dad?" This time Ron showed his concern.

All eyes were now on Hermione, that was staring at Arthur tensed as a stick.

"Well, last night when she ran away, she sneaked into the ministry and looked for Hermione's file- y'know, each wizard and witch must have one, the ministry make them when they turn eleven-, and she- she took it."

"So, she has all the information there is to know about me?" Hermione's voice wasn't shaking, but monotone.

"Well- yes."

"How can the ministry let things like this happen?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, how the hell there's no security to protect this kind of information?"

"Language, Ronald," spoke Molly, who until then was quiet and shaking a little, worrying in silence about her son's friends that she considered her own.

"You see" Arthur continued as if nothing happened, "there is. A lot of protecting wards similar to the ones at Hogwarts and since Sirius escaped, there's guards all around the ministry. However, last night she broke in and..."

"What?" Asked the two boys at the same time.

"All the guards were killed, and all the wards were broken at the Department of Wizards and Witches Information and Very Important Data."

If she wasn't as worried as she was at that moment, Hermione might've taken some time to comment how stupid that department's name was. But again, she was too worried to care about a bloody name.

Arthur gave Harry a newspaper, who looked at it before showing it to Hermione.

It was _The Daily Prophet_ , Hermione noticed, and an image of Bellatrix getting sent to Azkaban was the first thing you could notice. She had a lost look on her eyes, worst than Sirius' one. It gave her chills noticing the similarities between the two of them, and how careless they seem. If she was worried about Harry before, now it was doble, as she was also concerned about her personal wellbeing and, well- life in general.

 **_" BELLATRIX LESTRANGE NÉE BLACK, THE MOST FEARED DEATH EATER, OUT OF AZKABAN AND LOOKING FOR HARRY POTTER'S MUGGLEBORN FRIEND HERMIONE GRANGER."_ **  
**_(See page 16 for more)_ **

"Why would that crazy woman be looking for Hermione?" Ron had stood and had read the newspaper too.

"She-" Arthur seem so lost at words Hermione felt sorry for him. "Well, we- the ministry thinks... You see, that crazy woman had always hated muggleborns and- and Harry Potter defeated her master-"

"So this is my fault?" Harry asked, looking as broken as he had ever did.

"No, of course it's not, Harry," Hermione finally spoke. "Don't even think about it, okay?"

Harry nodded, and tightened his hold on her hand.

Things definitely changed after that breakfast.

* * *

Going to Diagon Alley wasn't as excited that year. Harry, Ron and Hermione were surrounded by the Weasleys and a couple of aurors. Everyone kept staring at them as they made their yearly shoping for Hogwarts. It just felt awkward, and didn't have that rush of excitement she always felt when she got to hold the new year's books.

They again stopped at Ollivanders, and Mr. Weasley went inside accompanied by an auror. The reminding group continued with their shopping, but Hermione didn't give much of a thought, as she was already pouring her soul into hee new Transfiguration book.

"Hello, Garrick," said calmly the redhead after entering the shop. "The ministry was told someone broke in a few days ago," he took a breath and looked around the shop, finding it untidy, more than usual at least.

"Yes," the man's voice was full of tiredness. "I first thought they ought to have stole something, but then I realised... The person was looking for a very specific wand," his tone dropped, and suddenly he looked around him and the entire shop, a paranoid look on his face. "They were looking for _the wand_ , Arthur,"

"The wand?" asked the auror, named Jakob.

"Y'know, Arthur," he continued. "The wand I couldn't seem to get rid off until two years ago."

Arthur understood, and his face went whiter than it usually was. "Do you mean, Garrick, that a person broke in the same night Bellatrix escaped Azkaban looking for Hermione's wand?"

"Yeah, yeah, _that girl_..." he seem lost in thought for a second. "Yes, Arthur, that's exactly what I mean,"


	15. The Sacred Twenty-Eight

A few days prior their return to Hogwarts, Hermione had already read all the books assigned. She took the book she bought about The Sacred Twenty-Eight, long forgotten in her trunk for the previous events.

She gave the cover a long look, analysing it; a rich yet old design covered in gold the entire front, giving the book an imponent vibe. She opened it, taking a look at the inside.

 **_"In the 1930s or 1940s, an anonymous publication concerned with preserving the purity of bloodlines within the magical population was compiled, giving a compendium of the truly pure-blood families._ **  
**_That's how The Sacred Twenty-Eight was created."_ **

_What a wait to start a book_ , she thought reading the first page.

She turned page after page until she got to the Rosier family.

 _ **Rosier**_.

**_The inclusion of the Rosiers in a French family tree of the Lestrange family suggests that the family originated, or has branches in, France._ **

**_The surname of a pure-blood wizarding family, and one of The Sacred Twenty-Eight. They are related to the Black, Malfoy and Lestrange families._ **

_**Family Members**._

**_Up to this day, they're extint. The last living family member of that family, Kaitlyn Rosier, was pronounced dead by the ministry a few days after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated by Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, at age one._ **

**_Kaitlyn Rosier was one of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named most loyal follower, and it is believed they shared a deepest connection far from the ideological one. There had been through the years a lot of claims regarding their relationship, but there is still nothing confirmed about the nature of their relationship._ **

**_It is also believe Kaitlyn Rosier had descendant, as some Death Eaters (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers) claimed when they were sent to Azkaban that they knew about that child and where they were at. This information hadn't been either confirmed or denied, but many believe the child (if the claims about their existence were proved true) was born dead._ **

"What are you reading?"

She jumped when she heard her friend's voice. She looked up to questioning blue eyes, and smiled.

"School books," she didn't knew why she lied, but she did. "Why do you even ask?"

"Dunno, 'Mione," Ron said. "You seem a little off lately. Just want to know if you're okay," his cheeks turned red, and Hermione moved slightly to give him space in her bed to sit.

"I've been a little bit of lately," she confirmed. "I'm just worried."

"About what?"

"About Harry, about me, about your family... About everything, really."

"Why are you worried about my family?"

"Dunno," she lied. "It just worries me that Harry and I are staying with you, maybe it will get you in trouble with- well, you know."

"I thought you were the intelligent one, 'Mione," he laughed softly, not a tiny bit of malice in his voice. "If we get in trouble, we will get in trouble together, okay?" he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and dragged her to his chest. "Because we're family, and family stick together."

"We're a family?"

"Yes. Mom, dad, George and Fred -even Percy and my annoying little sister; Harry, you and I... We're all a family, 'Mione."

She stayed quiet for a while, taking in the feeling. It was quite overwhelming to know that, after a lifetime feeling alone, she finally had something, a group of people, she could call her family.

For a moment, she told herself not to get too carried with those feelings, because they wouldn't last. The Weasleys weren't her family, because if they were, they would leave her, just like her mother did. That thought took away all the happiness she felt after Ron's words; her father told her she left her right after she was born. If her own mother did so, why wouldn't they, when there was no blood connecting them, or really anything other than her being one of Ron's friends?

 _Maybe they won't_ , she thought, and begged to whoever was up there that put her own in here that her own craftmade family would never leave her, because she didn't wanted to feel alone again.

 _Her own family_ , she told herself. She never knew having a family would felt the way it did. It put a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest, and smile on her face. And the best of all, she didn't feel alone when she thought of them. Having a family was amazing, and she realised so after almost fifteen years.

"It's nice having a family," she whispered, closing her eyes.

* * *

"Everything ready?" Molly's voice sounded through the entire second floor.

"Yes, mom," Ginny replied.

"All set, Molly."

"My girls, the only ones ready when they need to be," she walked to them and whispered. "That's why you guys are my favorites."

"We heard you, mother," Fred spoke behind the older redhead.

"You know how much it wounds our confidence?" George said in the same tone as his twin.

"As if you have any of it," shot back Ginny, grabbing Hermione's hand and walking down the stairs to greet her father.

"Hello, girls," said Arthur. "The ministry sent us a car so we could get to King's Cross."

"Really?" the ginger asked her father, who nodded in response.

* * *

The Weasleys stood in front of a tiny car, smiles on their faces. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, concerned.

"How are we going to fit in there?"

"Oh, Harry, dear, you'll see."

Arthur got in followed by his wife, and then Percy and the twins. Ron smiled at them before entering right after Ginny.

They looked at each other, not believing their own eyes.

"Do I need to get my glasses fix?" he asked, touching said object to make sure they were still there and he wasn't going crazy.

"Yes, you should, but you saw right."

They then followed and sat down in one of the many seats the car had inside. On the front, riding, there was the man who accompanied them to Diagon Alley the other day. They looked around a little more, and Harry looked out of the window impressed.

"This is a _freaking clown car_ ," Hermione said.

"Oi, what's that?" Ron chimed in.

"Nothing, Ronald."

"I love magic," said Harry, still looking around the car, with an amazed look on his face.


	16. Dementors

Arriving at King's Cross felt way too similar to the other day at Diagon Alley for Hermione's liking.

They entered the train after saying their farewells to the Weasleys. "Take care, my girl," asked Molly, who kissed her on the cheek not giving her the chance to answer.

Ron and Hermione stood in front of the door waiting for Harry, and when he arrived from talking with Arthur, they went off to find an empty compartment.

They didn't find one so decided to sit in one with only one person inside. They seem to be sleeping.

"Who is he? He doesn't look like a student," asked Ronald.

Hermione looked up and saw a suitcase with a name on it.

"Remus J. Lupin," she answered, making Ron turn around quickly to look at her.

"How did you know? How is it that you everything?"

She rolled her eyes, and raised her hand. "It's on his suitcase, Ronald."

"Oh," he whispered.

Hermione spent the entire journey re-reading her school books. Shortly after the train took off, Ginny and Neville joined them in the compartment. The rest was in a talk about Quidditch, keeping it low not to bother Hermione, which she was really thankful of.

The brunette thought for a moment they were finally going to get a calm trip back to Hogwarts until the lights went off and it started to feel extremely cold.

She let her closed book rest next to her, and took her wand out just in case.

Something opened the door. A hooded black figure appeared right in front of them, and she started to feel dizzy all of the sudden.

 _"Please, please!"_ she heard a woman's voice, broken and desperate. _"Don't take her, she's just a baby!"_

 _"Don't make it more difficult than this already is, Kaitlyn"_ a familiar voice- a man's voice she had heard before said _"Give us the baby."_

_"No!"_

"Hermione!" She opened her eyes to see Ron facing her, examinating her up close with a concern look on his face. "Oh, bloody hell, are you okay?"

She looked around, and realized she was lying on the floor -sweet Merlin, did she _past out_?

"What happened?" asked Harry next to her, sitting on the floor and feeling as lost as she was.

"Did you heard it?" she asked.

Harry was the only one who seem to understand her. "A voice- a woman's voice."

"Yes."

"There was no voice, guys," told them Ginny.

"Eat chocolate," said a man with a big scar on his face, and greying hair. He handled pieces of chocolate to everyone, saving the biggest pieces for Harry and Hermione.

"What the hell was that?" she asked when Neville helped her up and back into her seat, taking a piece of chocolate into her mouth.

"A dementor," the man, Remus J. Lupin, she guessed, answered through a mouth full of chocolate.

" _A_ _what_?"

"Dementor," he moved from his seat in the door and sat down, giving Hermione a long look, as if he was analysing her. "They're from Azkaban, and the ministry sent them here in case Sirius or Bellatrix appear in the grounds."

The tension that already existed whithin the compartment grew bigger at those words. It was obvious everyone was worried about the two fugitives whereabouts. It was a big option they would try to get to Hogwarts, since Hermione and Harry were going to be there for months.

"I felt so bad," said Neville, shaking slightly. "As if I wouldn't be able to be happy again."

"And that voice..." whispered Harry.

"Did you both really heard a voice?" asked Ron, getting two nodds as an answer.

"I'd better go and talk to the other professors," the man said. "Eat, you'll feel better."

* * *

"Did you really hear a voice?"

"For the forth time, Ronald, _yes_."

"And what did it said?"

"I think it was my mother's voice," whispered Harry. He still looked a little shaken by the previous events, so shaken he wasn't enjoying the feast as much as he would usually do. "Right before she..."

Everyone nodded in understanding and decided to continue eating. Hermione played with her food rather than eat it, still thinking about those voices she heard, which didn't seem to match with Harry's voice, since she was quite certain she also heard the voice of someone she knew. She couldn't quite wrap her finger about _who_ it was, but she knew it came from someone she knew. The other one, the woman's voice, felt quite familiar, like a distant memory from someone she once knew, but no longer did.

 _It was dumb_ , she decided when they were on the desserts, I'm just tired, _I didn't hear things properly._

She played with the chain of the collar she was wearing. McGonagall had called her in right after she entered Hogwarts, and had talked to her about the time-turner. She was thrilled to know she would be able to take all the classes she wanted to. Her professor teached her how to used it, and she learned how within minutes.

"You truly are the brightest witch of your age, dear," McGonagall told with a smile before dismissing her.

This year would definitely be interesting.


	17. The Grim

The fact that she had come to the conclusion that what she heard when the dementor entered the compartment was the voice of someone she without a doubt knew didn't stop her curiosity. Right after her first day of classes, she went to the library -ignoring Harry and Ron's complains- and spent a few hours investigating on those creatures.

She gathered all the information she found interesting and went to the Great Hall, just in time to have dinner with her friends and to tell Harry she had some information about the dementors.

That night, she told Harry, Ron, Ginny and Neville about everything she knew so far, and stopped in the fact that the dementors used their worst memories against them and fed on the good ones.

"So, that's why I heard my mother..." whispered Harry.

"Then why did you heard a voice, too?" Neville looked at her with a puzzled look.

For the first in a long time, she didn't have the answer to such a simple question. "I don't know," she said, honestly. "I guess it's just a memory from my mother before she left me."

Everyone nodded, not wanting to push the subject more, knowing it was a delicate one.

* * *

She used the time-turner to get to the first Divination class. The woman who teached that subject was Sybill Trelawney, an exotic woman with round glasses that made her eyes look inhumanly big.

She dragged her eyes around the class and stopped them on Hermione. She felt those big, lunatic eyes burning into her and looked up.

"You!" she screamed, pointing an skeletal finger in her direction. Hermione looked around in confusion and realised she was talking to her. "You have _the grim_!"

A few people gasped at those words, but the rest looked at lost as Hermione was feeling.

"The _what_?"

"The grim!" she screamed, and her hands went to her hair in a desperate way. "You've the grim, girl. You're going to die!"

"Perfect," she said, sarcastically. "Tell me the date; I want to know when I'm going to have an appointment with the death, so I don't make plans that day."

"Hermione," whispered Ron, with concerned washing his face.

"You silly girl! You've got the grim!" continued Trelawney.

She rolled her eyes and ignored everyone's stare on her.

The mood drastically changed after that. Everyone was looking at Hermione with pinny looks, and Harry and Ron kept on checking on her every time they could, as if they were afraid she'd past out if they didn't keep an eye on her.

"What's with your mood today? I found my performance quite amusing," McGonagall looked around the class, all her studients with dull faces, staring slightly at Hermione.

"We've had class with Trelawney," said Lavender.

"Oh, _I see_ ," the professor didn't stop the roll in her eyes. "Who is going to die this year?"

"Me, professor," Hermione raised her hand, and a few people looked at her with simphacy.

"I hope you all know she does this every year. There's nothing to be worried about, miss Granger."

"Don't worry, professor, I wasn't concerned at all."

Harry chuckled beside her and had to fight the smirk that was trying to take over her face.

"I'm glad to hear that. Now, open your books."

* * *

"Hermione has the grim!" Ron told Ginny the moment they sat down in the Great Hall to eat. "The grim!"

The redhead rolled her eyes. "You seriously don't believe that stuff, do you?"

"Well..." his ears turned red.

"I promise you, Ronald," said Hermione "that if I die this year, I will come back as a ghost just to tell you you were right."

"I can believe it'd take you death to accept I'm right for once."

Everyone around them laughed.


	18. Butterbears and Bad Feelings

Days went by, and with that, the Hogsmeade weekends. Harry and Hermione were called by McGonagall after the announcement to tell them they wouldn't be allowed to leave Hogwarts for their circumstances.

Harry was pretty dumped about that, and she tried to chear him up saying they could spent the day together and she wouldn't put a feet into the library.

Ron, after hearing the news, told them solemnly that he wouldn't go either, but then remembered he wanted them to try different candies and other joke foods. And butterbear, you _can't_ forget about the butterbear.

"I'll go quickly and then come back with everything. We'll spend the entire day trying different things. It'll be fun!"

That seem to light Harry's spirit, and in a quick movement he got up and climbed the stairs to the boys' bedrooms. Ron and Hermione looked at each other, but before they could comment on how strange he acted, Harry was back with a bag of coins. He threw it at his ginger friend.

"Buy me everything. Literally _everything_."

She copied his action, and dropped another back, the one she had for emergencies -this is way more important that an emergency, she told herself.

"I want to try everything, too."

* * *

They woke up pretty early one Saturday morning in December to wave their friends goodbye.

Harry and Hermione walked back to the castle, and entered the Great Hall to have breakfast.

"Hey," said Harry. "At least we will have a proper breakfast for once."

She laughed, and agreed with him.

They had breakfast with only a couple of teachers with them, including Dumbledore and Snape, who had the same blank face he always did.

McGonagall, who was also there, gave them a few sympathetic looks, looking sad about the shigh of the two kids being forced to stay in the castle and prived by all fun just because the Black cousins were looking for them. It was just so unfair.

They had their fun, though. After breakfast, they explored the castle a little, stopping at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to say hello. After hearing about her new adventures, they went to Gryffindor's common room and sat around the fire, talking.

"Tell me about your father," Harry has had been meaning to try to get to know that side of her friend more, but she never seem too open to show it.

"He's a complete _arse_ ," she started, knowing it was better to finally let it all out. "You see... As he said, mom left us shortly after I was born, and my father always blamed me for it. Says I was the reason she had to leave, and that I ruined everything," Harry stared at her, and she knew he wasn't going to judge her, but she was still afraid of what he might think of her. Was he going to call her a coward for not standing for herself? Was she in fact a coward for being afraid of her own father? She hated feeling that way. "I always knew he really didn't love me, but we kind of coexisted, if that makes sense. That was until the first day I used magic; He got _so_ angry at it, that he hit me in the face so hard my nose started to bleed."

"Hermione..."

She didn't let him finish. Once she had started, she wasn't going to stop until she was done. Harry understood and shut up. "After that, it all changed. He would hit me any chance he had. He would come drunk on his free nights from work and would just scream at me, telling me I was a freak," she swallowed. "The day McGonagall came to visit me to tell me about the magic world, he saw her. When she left, he almost beated me to death. Ever since that night, I try to avoy him as much as possible."

"What does he works at?"

"His father has a denist company, and he works there."

"What's his name?"

"Thomas Granger."

He nodded, and they stayed quiet for a while.

"Just because your father is an arse doesn't mean you're a coward, 'Mione."

She nodded, with tears in her eyes. It felt so good to hear someone saying it; it made her feel better about herself.

"Tell me about the Dursleys."

* * *

 It didn't take Ron more than an hour to run into Gryffindor's common room with hands full of a lot of diffent packages and a bag with even more.

"I've never spent so much money in food. It was so exciting!" he walked to the table they were at talking a few moments before and dropped everything in it, giving the money bags back to their owners.

They started to examinate all the candy the moment it hit the wood, and Ron laughed at their excitement over things he would usually take for granted.

"Sometimes I forgot you two grew with muggles."

Ginny and Neville managed to sneak some butterbears into the castle half an hour latter, and they were too happy to question how they did it - _Bloody hell, I forgot about the butterbears!_ Ron exclaimed when he saw the pair entering the hole.

The five friends sat around the table, drinking butterbears and eating Honeydukes' every flavour candy.

"Merlin's beard! That was disgusting," Neville said after claiming he ate a vomit one.

"This is definitely way funnier than going out," laughed Harry, with tears in his eyes.

* * *

Not everything was going to be as good as that Saturday was, as always.

Sirius Black had tried and succeed to enter the castle, but scaped shortly after. Everyone was still terrified, Hermione holding tigh onto Crookshanks, the cat Molly gifted her for her birthday.

She tried, she _really_ did, but she couldn't help panicking over something like what just happened a few days ago happening to her with that crazy woman. Merlin knows what she'd do to her if she-

"Not doing homework, 'Mione?" the surprised on Harry's voice made her question how predictable she actually was, if her best friend was surprised to see her in the common room instead of the library during her free time.

"No, Harry," she stared at the fire, scratching Crookshanks behind the ears before getting up. "I just have a bad feeling."

"A bad feeling? As in divination kind of bad feeling?" he joked.

"No, Harry, a _real_ bad feeling."

"Don't worry, 'Mione," he sat down next to where she previously was and dragged her along with him, letting her rest her head in his chest. "Everything will alright."

"How do you know?"

"I have a good feeling," he teased, earing a smack in the chest.


	19. Jumpers with big H's on them

The end of the term came with the amazing news of the Weasleys inviting Harry and Hermione over for the holidays. They were both frenetic about it. Getting to spend holidays with people who liked them and not just the two of them alone in the castle felt so refreshing they started packing a few days before the term ended.

"I don't really see why you guys are so excited," their redhead friend told them when they were on the train. "Christmas at my house is always a mess."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't ruin the mood, Ronald."

* * *

They arrived at King's Cross later that day, in time to have lunch.

"Oh, Ginny!" Molly said, completely ignoring her other kids. "Hermione, dear, how are you?" She embraced her in a warm hug, and the brunette felt her cheeks heating up.

"Good. Thanks for inviting us over. We really appreciate it."

"There you are, Harry," the raven haired boy was the third to be noticed by the Weasley matriarch.

"We get it mom, they're your favorites," joked George when she acknowledged them and hugged them.

"Shush, George, I see you all the time," she took a breath. "And yes, they're my favorites," she winked at them.

* * *

They made their way to their house through portkey -Hermione almost threw up, just like Harry, since neither knew how that type of travelling was like (Ron laughed so hard at their reaction he felt to the ground with tears in his eyes, exclaiming _"Blimey, you should've seen your faces!"_ ), and got into their rooms to unpack.

"Food is ready!"

They all went downstairs and sat down in the table, which Molly had enchanted so it would be larger to fit them all.

Hermione sat down between Fred and George, earning a groan from Ron.

"But she's my friend!"

"Oh, shut up," they said at the same time.

"Stop fighting and eat."

Ginny and Hermione spent almost all the afternoon in the ginger's room, talking about everything -the brunette had been so busy with school she hadn't had enough time to talk with her friend as much as she would've liked it. Catching up with Ginny was so much fun; the younger witch would always find a way to make the most dull story funny with little adds and details.

The went down for dinner a little later than the rest to find Arthur in the table. He had been at work the entire day, so it was no surprise when Ginny screamed and ran to get hug her father.

"Hey pet."

"Come sit with us."

The twins had a seat between reserved just for her, and she couldn't help the little chuckle that left her lips when she realised how much they were enjoying annoying Ron. She actually enjoyed it quite a lot, too.

"Tell me," Arthur said, "what exactly is the function of a rubber duck?"

The entire room was filled with laughs.

* * *

The holidays went by pretty fast. Hermione had made the promise to only study in the mornings, so she would spent all her afternoons going around the house and its garden or chilling in Ron and Harry's bedroom with the two boys, just lying in one bed and talking about anything that would go through their minds at that moment, or simply lying there in silence.

One day, after lunch, they sat down in the living room around the fire to talk about the newest broom -Nimbus something, she really didn't care about that name. The brunette had a book in her lap, reading it, while her friends kept talking, making a fuzzy noise that relaxed her. She was really used to living in a house full of silence than hearing constant conversation and movement calmed her.

She stopped reading when she thought about that, looking up and staring into space while her mind quickly started working. It amazed her how little it took her to find comfort in little details. All it took, she noticed, was that it was completely different from how things were at home.

"'Mione?" the green-eyed boy asked her. "You alright?"

"Yes, more than ever."

* * *

That Christmas morning was the most exciting one she had ever experienced so far. A lot of gingers going around, talking and screaming and joking and simply making everything feel so warm, so _right_. And she had presents -presents as in plural; it wasn't just a basic, white toothbrush her father would always gifted her.

Harry and Ron had got her a couple of books with tittles she had mentioned earlier that year.

She gasped at that. "You really actually paid attention?"

"'Course we did."

She got Arthur a ruber duck and some other other muggle things with little papers stuck to them to explain the purpose they have within the muggles -for research purpose, of course. He got so excited he almost started crying.

"This is fascinating!" he exclaimed. "Look at this, _toothpaste_! Fascinating!" he was squeezing the paste out of its tube and right into the table but he was having so much fun no one had the heart to stop him. "Look at this shinny doughnut!" he readed the tag. "A CD? Thank you a lot, dear."

Molly gifted them all jumpers with their initial on it, and Harry and Hermione had way too much fun walking around The Burrow wearing their jumpers with a big H on it, being accompanied most of the times by Ginny and George also showing of their matching G jumpers.

The Weasley matriarch found it so amusing and heartwarming that she took a few pictures of the two -and then four, since Ginny and George went running to find their jumpers; and then the entire Weasley family because, well, family picture.

She kept a couple of those photos inside her copy of Hogwarts: A History, and would look at them occasionally to remind herself her life had a purpose after all.

It all felt different, a good different.


	20. Overprotective Dorks

Diagon Alley kept the magical feeling it always did, but magicians all around kept giving second glaces at anything suspicious. It was clear the magical world was in alert after the escape of the two Black cousins.

The walls were surrounded by signs with the two runaways. The redhead took a good look at one of Bellatrix's one.

**APPROACH WITH EXTREME CAUTION**  
**DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE MAGIC AGAINST THIS WOMAN**  
**Any information leading to the arrest of this woman shall be duly rewarded.**  
**Notify immediately by owl the Ministry of Magic - Witch Watchers Department**

He was concerned of Hermione's wellbeing, without a doubt. And Harry- oh, loving that kid came with an implicit contract of being constantly worried about him.

The wizard walked to Ollivander's, which was open again, and seem like it was trying to ignore that a certain woman had broke into it a few weeks prior and destroyed pretty much everything in the inside.

"Good Morning, Garrick."

The man looked up from the parchment he was writing on and gave the man a smile. "Good to see you again, Arthur! What can I do for you?"

The ginger took off his hat and walked to were the man was sitting.

"I was hoping you could tell me more about Hermione's wand. You said it had caused you trouble through the years and mentioned it was a relief to finally get rid of it, but you never really mentioned anything else."

"Oh, you see," he got up. "That wand is Kaitlyn Rosier' wand twin."

* * *

The second term was being brutal to Hermione. She had way too many classes and so little time, that even if she cheated a little and used the time-turner from time to time to be able to finish all her homework in time, she was still stressed.

She was in the library writting an essay on werewolves dued to next week by professor Snape for Defence Against the Dark Arts. She wasn't an idiot, and within a few moments she had put together all the pieces about Lupin; he was a werewolf, but she wasn't going to tell neither Harry or Ron or anyone really, since it wasn't her place to do so.

When she was done, she checked her watch and realised it was pretty late. Putting all her things into her bag, she made her way back into Gryffindor's common room.

A lot of people was outside with McGonagall and Dumbledore in their pyjamas, and she frowned her eyebrows. Dean saw her and pointed at her, making both adults turn around and let a simultaneous sigh of relief.

"Miss Granger, I'm so glad you're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Ron had already walked up to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She looked around confused, and then focused on Ron's face.

"Where were you, may I ask?" Dumbledore asked.

"In the library, doing homework. Why?"

"The aurors had told us they've seen Bellatrix in the Forbidden Forest looking around the castle."

"Did they caught her?" she pressed her body against Ron's, looking for support since she was starting to feel dizzy.

"Unfortunately, she ran away before they could get her. She harmed a few aurors while doing so."

She felt sick in her stomach. She was going to throw up. Or past out. Or both.

"Where's Harry?" her voice was kind of shaky but she covered it with a blank face.

"Inside," told her Ron. "They wouldn't let him come out because, well... _Y'know_."

"I suggest you get some rest tonight, miss Granger. Come to my office tomorrow after breakfast."

They dismissed the group back inside. Harry was waiting for them in the common room walking in circles, looking anxious.

"'Mione!" he ran to her and hugged her and Ron. "I thought something happened! Dumbledore wasn't saying anything and- Merlin, I was so afraid you might have been hurt."

"I'm okay, Harry, don't worry. Just a little shaken by everything, but good nevertheless."

"I'm so glad you're fine, 'Mione."

"Let's take her to bed, Harry."

"OK."

"Hey!" she cut their talk to make them look at her. "I'm not a kid, I can go alone. It's just some stairs."

The boys, however, didn't let go of their hold on her and accompanied her to her door, waiting outside her bathroom to give her a little bit of intimacy while she changed into her pyjamas.

"You're going to get in trouble for being in one of the girl's bedroom."

"We don't care," their voices in unison gave her a short of flashback to all the times George and Fred talked at the same time, making her chuckle.

"Whatever," she laid down in her bed and smiled when she heard the boys closing the door and walking to their bedroom.

Dorks, she thought, overprotective dorks; but my dorks anyway.

* * *

After finishing her breakfast, she waited a while in the table re-reading her eassay for History of Magic, making time for the boys to finish theirs.

"Oi, I'm full," Ron put his hands on his stomach to give more meaning to his words.

"I don't know how. Since you can't close your mouth while eating, half of your food goes out again before you can swallow it," she murmured, her eyes still on the parchment.

Harry and Ginny laughed at it.

"You got burn, lil' brother," George said a few seats away from them, making a few Gryffindors laugh.

"Did not," he got Scabbers put of the pocket of his shirt and started to feel him the leftovers.

She made a disgusting face. "Get that _thing_ away from the table, Ronald."

"No, thank you, Hermione. You just hate him because your _dumb cat_ wants to eat him."

"That's not true. I'm just saying it's bad manners to put pets into the table," she said, in a matter of fact tone, and Ron put the rat back into his shirt pocket while giving her an annoyed look.

But to be honest, it was kind of true. That rat gave her bad vibes ever since the first moment she saw him, but always thought it was because she had always felt repulsion over rodents. However, every time she gave that rat a look, she felt something -she didn't know what-, but she felt something deep inside of her telling that rat wasn't a simple rat.

But of course, maybe the fact that Crookshanks looked desperate to put his pawns on him was indeed the reason she doubted that rat.

I mean, after all, he was a freaking rat- what could a rat really do, _kill your family_?

She rolled her eyes at that thought.


	21. Premonitions and Biscuits

"Good to see you, miss Granger," Dumbledore raised up from his seat and walked to them. "I see you've bring your bodyguards with you," he joked.

"More like they came here because they never leave me alone," she rolled her eyes.

"Much better. I had to talk with Harry too, anyways. Please, take a sit."

They looked at each other and sat down in the chairs the headmaster had created out of thin air with a twist of his wand. Ron seem a little awkward, since he wasn't exactly involved in the conversation they were about to have, but sat nevertheless.

"As you may know, certain people are trying to... Make their way into you both," he sounded calmed, and it grounded the three kids. "As a protection measurement, Hogwarts have decided you won't be allowed to leave school until they're both hunted down. Not even for holidays."

"But, professor-"

"No buts, Potter. Now, go to class, you don't have much time to get there," he blinked an eye at Hermione and they got up.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed when they left the Headmaster's office. "We have divination."

Her friends chuckled at that, it was funny to see Hermione, the teacher's pet, not getting along with one.

* * *

She was fed up. First, she wasn't allow to put a fet out of school -how were they going to take Care of Magical Creatures, if they couldn't make it to the bloody class?- and now Trelawney kept telling her she saw death in her tea cup. She _was_ fed up.

"Your father..." she looked at the tea for a few moments and then gasped. She whispered: "He's going to kill you."

Harry and Ron looked at each other worried, but Hermione just rolled her eyes. That teacher had hit a really soft spot indeed, but she wasn't going to show it.

" _Honestly_ ," she said raising up from her chair. "You can't be more ridiculous."

She collected her things and left the classroom through the trapdoor, feeling everyone's stares on her. She was so annoyed she couldn't even begin to point out all the things that were making her so upset, all she could think of was she needed to get out of that place with that insufferable woman.

She walked doem the unusual empty corridors at a fast pace, her mind going around and around the same thing. Merlin, she hated that teacher.

"What are you doing out of class, miss Granger?"

She looked behind her to see McGonagall looking down at her with a puzzled look. It really surprised the deputy headmaster to see one of the most dedicated and mature students in Hogwarts skipping class, especially without her two best friends next to her.

"Uh-" she felt out of her element. Whenever she got in trouble, the boys would be there with her to speak up for her. "Professor Trelawney said something that made me pretty upset, so I... I left class."

She rolled her eyes and looked at the brunette with simphacy. "What did she said this time?" she approached the girl.

"Apart from the typical _'you're going to die'_ , now she has add that I'm- well..."

"Yes?"

"She had said my father will kill me."

She had never felt such a silence like the one she felt after saying those words. McGonagall didn't say a thing, simply stayed still looking at her face, and that's when she realised she was about to cry.

Oh, but she wouldn't cry, though. _No_ , she wouldn't give that lunatic the satisfaction of knowing she had got to her.

"Let's go to my office. I'll give you a biscuit."

* * *

The end of the second term felt less exciting than the last one did. Ron had decided to stay with them along with the twins and Ginny. She appreciated the thought, but it just didn't felt the same.

During holidays, they were the only ones felt at the Gryffindor's common room, and spent the nights up in there lying on the sofas and even the floor, and talking and talking, pretending nothing was wrong. She liked it; it felt good to be able to act as a kid for once.

"Only a few months left until we finish school."

That made her tense up. She had really bad feeling about this last term.


	22. Boggart

"I can't believe exams start tomorrow."

"You would believe so if you paid attention in class, Ronald," murmured the brunette, looking at her book. The trio was in the library, unsurprisingly Hermione suggested it, and they were doing the last revision before exams began.

If Harry and Ron were anxious and couldn't barely keep up with the fast pace school was forcing them into, Hermione was on another level of stress. She had more classes than her friends (even though she had quit Divination) and didn't know how she hadn't had a panic attack yet with all the pressure she had put onto herself. However, she was going to get good grades on every class, she knew it.

With all the pressure, she had almost completely forgot about Bellatrix. With all due honesty, she wouldn't care to worry about it until she was done with exams. Then, she told herself, she could focus on the crazy bitch that apparently wanted to kill her.

"What d'you reckon the Denfense Against Dark Arts exam is going to be?" asked Ron, trying and failing to read his book for DADA, even if Lupin told them multiple times books weren't needed for the exam.

"I hope it's fighting a boggart," said Harry. "I didn't get the chance to do it in class."

"I hope it's _not_ ," she whispered. "I don't want to know what my biggest fear is."

* * *

The boggart was her father. Her own father, staring down at her.

"Now, now," his voice was so real -how could it be so _real_? She started to feel dizzy, completely forgetting she was in an exam and professor Lupin was standing a few feet away from her. She forgot, because the cold, merciless tone of her father was stonger than everything; stronger than her fear of failure, stronger than her constant need to prove herself worthy. It all was nothing compared to the way he looked at her, as if he was seeing right through her soul and was disgusted by what he was seeing in it.

"Father..." she took a few steps back and the figure got closer to her, with a calm pace that made her blood run cold. She knew what that walk meant; she definitely was in trouble. She was facing the consequences of something. What it was, she wasn't sure, but it usually didn't take her father much to have an excuse to abuse her.

" _You_ _little_ _freak_ ," the voice said again, and Hermione told herself her father wasn't there, that it was all false, that Lupin was just a few steps from her and that her father wasn't there, again. She repeated that part again and again in her head, trying to make herself understand. But the fear was to much, she was paralyzed by it. "Don't you dare call me that," in a blink of an eye, he was standing next to her, and the first slap happened, though she didn't felt any pain. That made her frow her eyes, she was used to that action, and even more acostumbrated to the sharp pain that followed and would felt through her entire body, but she didn't felt nothing at all.

Hermione thought for a moment it scared her more than even her father the fact that she was so used to that. How could she be _so_ used to that, to being treat that way? It wasn't fair.

She tighted the hold on her wand, and raised it slowly. She pointed it at her father's chest, and for a moment; just a brief, tiny moment, not more than two seconds, she was tempted to use one of the unforgettable curses on him she had read in a book in the library one day. It would end everything, she told herself, feeling relieved at the thought, I would be finally okay. She didn't though, instead whispering _Riddikulus_ and seeing her father turn into a teddy bear in front of her.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Lupin was within a moment standing next to her. He put a hand in her shoulder, and gave her a concern look.

"Yes," She stumbled upon her words, trying to gain her voice again before she was able to answer.

"Eat," he told her, giving her a chocolate bar. "You'll feel better."

She took it in her shaky hands and tried to open the package, but falled miserably because her hands were shaking. Her cheeks might have turned red if all the color from her face hadn't been drawn.

"Here, let me do it," his voice was oddly calm, the exact opposite to what she expected. Why wasn't he laughing at her, telling her how stupid she was for being afraid of her own father? "There you go," She took a bite out of it, still feeling her hands shaking. "Better?"

"Yes," she lied again.

"You did it pretty well," he whispered, looking down at her with simphacy. "Full mark, for sure."

She hated it. She hated how people would look down at her with simphacy or pitty because of her father. She hated it more than anything in the world, more than when people didn't pay attention in class, more than when people would write or destroy books. There was nothing she could ever hate more than that look being pointed directly at her.

She couldn't help but remember what Trelawney told her a few months ago. Those words would occasionally cross her mind _'Your father... He's going to kill you'_. Yeah, she probably hated more than the pity look admitting that crazy woman had got into her.

She left the class still eating the chocolate bar, and Harry and Ron were waiting for her outside.

"Hey, 'Mione."

"How did it go?"

She simply shook her head and hugged both boys, failing for the first time in so long to hold back the tears.

She was afraid, and she hated it; but she was afraid, nevertheless.

 


	23. Pettigrew

Oh, _of course_. She rolled her eyes, of course the DADA teacher would be the bad guy. _How surprising_ , really.

They were wandless, and Ron was hurt. In front of them, Sirius Black kept talking about killing _him_ -who was that, she wasn't sure- and screaming crazy things. Azkaban really did a number on him, and that wasn't about the tattoo on his neck.

"I did my waiting!" he told professor Lupin. "Twelve years of it! In _Azkaban_!"

Yeah, he was definitely out of his rocker.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!" she stepped in front of the raven hair boy, trying to shield him from any harm.

"No one is going to kill you, Hermione," Lupin talked behind Sirius.

"And _you_!" she looked past the lunatic. "How dare you after I kept your secret!"

"Secret? What secret?"

"He's a werewolf!"

"Wait, you know?" asked Sirius, surprised by how intelligent the girl was. Crookshanks, her cat, had talked to him about her and had said she was really intelligent, but he didn't expect for her to be _that_ intelligent.

"I've known since Snape made us do an essay on werewolves. Weak on days priors and after full moon, skipping class when there was full moon, and having Snape making you wolfsbane potion? _C'mon_ , it was obvious."

"It was obvious?" whispered Lupin, completely shocked at a fourteen years old discovering his biggest secret in just a few months.

"OK, enough!" Sirius screamed, and pointed his finger and Ron. "You! Give me that rat!"

"No!"

"Ron, give him the freaking rat," pleaded Harry.

"I'm not going to give him my rat. Scrabbers did nothing!"

"Accio rat," said Remus, and the rat flied from the ginger's hands to Remus' ones.

"What did you do?" he looked at Hermione for guidance. "What did he do?"

"The accio spell is used to summon-"

She shut her mouth when she saw Scrabbers turning into a man right in front of her eyes. The collective gasp they all took when they saw a man standing where Ron's rat once was could've been hear from miles away.

"Believe me now?" asked Sirius, looking back as his best friend with pleading eyes.

"Sirius, I-" he hugged him. "All this years I've thought you- you did it and-"

"There's no need to apologise, Remus."

"His finger!" gasped Hermione, and the two adults looked at Pettigrew, who was frozen where he stood out of fear of being discovered after so many years of hiding. They looked at each other and understood exactly what she meant.

They proceeded to explain the kids (well, actually just Ron and Harry because Hermione had already put the pieces together) Pettigrew's plan.

"It's up to you whether he dies now or he goes to Azkaban," Remus told Harry, ignoring Sirius complains. "Whatever you decide."

The rat-like man was lying on his knees, holding onto the boy's clothes and begging him for mercy.

"Azkaban."

"All right, then. Let's get this coward to where he belongs."

* * *

Lupin started to turn into a werewolf, the full moon ironically shining into his frame as he twisted and shouted. She snacked Harry's wand out of his hand since Sirius still had hers in his pocket, and pointed it at the transforming teacher in front of them.

"What are you doing, 'Mione!" screamed Harry, trying to get the wand back in his possession so she wouldn't be at risk. He might haven't pay much attention during the lesson Snape gave them because, well,  _Snape_ , but he did know doing magic and threatening a werewolf could only end wrong for you.

"Saving our lives," she pushes him over and waited for the right moment. She had done an essay on werewolves and got the highest mark of the class, she knew when attacking a werewolf would not kill it but weak him enough to give them spare time to solve things up.

Sirius was already transforming. "Step back, girl!" he warmed, but she played him no mind.

"No, _you_ step back!" she screamed, succeeding in making him take a few steps back without transforming.

Now it's the time, she thought.

"Petrificus Totalus!" the spell flew from the wand and out to Lupin, who stayed still for a few moments before falling to the ground.

Everyone stayed quite for a moment. Ron, still attached to Pettigrew, screamed in horror when he saw their professor laying still in the floor.

"You've _killed_ him!" he pointed a finger at Hermione.

"Did not!"

"She didn't, kid. She petrified him," he walked to his friend and let out a relief breath before looking at the brunette. "Smart girl, you are."

"I pay attention in class," she gave the ginger a pointed look.

"Okay, we're getting you bastard to Dumbledore," he walked to Pettigrew and grabbed him, walking back to Hogwarts.

"No, wait no! Ron! Haven't I been a good rat all this years? Please, _please_ , save me!"

"Get away from me, you disgusting bastard."

"What about professor Lupin?" asked Harry, standing next to his petrified body.

"He'll be okay."

They all walked back to the castle, without acknowledging Hermione wasn't there with them.

Far from where they were, Bellatrix Lestrange was carrying an unconscious Hermione far from her friends and the safety of Hogwarts.


	24. Just Like her Mother

"Look who's finally awake," a sing-song voice sounded in her ears when she opened her eyes. She looked around from her place in the floor and saw Bellatrix, the most feared deatheater, standing in front of her, looking at her with angry eyes. "Finally!" her voice was loud, and she trembled at the harse tone.

"Why- Why are you doing this?" she talked, her voice low. She felt weak, and after many tries to get up she finally gave up.

"Oh, the brightest witch of her age hasn't figure out why am I after her?" she faked a pout. "Maybe you're not as _intelligent_ as everyone keeps claiming you are, after all."

"I... I don't know," she confessed.

"It's because I hate you! Just looking at your face, and those eyes... You're just like her. Everytime I look at you, I see just see her."

"Her, _whom_?"

"She took him away from me!" she screamed, ignoring her completely. "And you- You're the product of that theft!" She raised her wand and pointed it at her. "Crucio!"

She screamed in pain, feeling as if every bone in her body was being broken, as if every organ was being completely twisted. It was without a doubt the worst feeling in the world.

It lasted less than a minute, but it was enough to make her cry her eyes out. Even after she raised the spell, everything still hurt so much she was about to throw up.

Why couldn't Bellatrix just be a nice, peaceful aunt looking to make amends with her niece and trying to start a happy life with her? It worked with Harry, why couldn't it work with her?

"I dispite every single thing about you," she groaned. "Such a noble bitch, standing from her friends and always saving them... You're just like her!"

"Like whom?" the pain made her mouth unable for her to speak properly.

"Like your mother!"

"You- You _knew_ my mother?" after fourteen years, that was the longest conversation about her mother she had ever had, and it was with the most unpleasant person in the world, more unpleasant that Snape, and that was saying a lot.

"Of course I knew your mother! Who didn't knew her, uh? So beautiful and kind, caught his eyes the moment she saw her."

"His eyes? Who-"

"But now I have a way of hurting her. After years and years in that awful place, being deprived from any happines, now I finally get to hurt her, in the best way possible. It was all worthy," she laughed, a crazy, blood freezing laugh that stood every hair in her body. "I finally get my revenge."

"Wha-"

"Crucio!"

She started screaming again, going again through that awful feeling of having every single bone in her body crumbled down and smashed.

"Please, stop!" she begged. "I- I didn't even get to met my mother!"

"Oh, _poor thing_ had to grow without her mama." she laughed and stepped on her hand, breaking a few bones. "I bet that sucks."

She screamed in agony, almost passing out from the intense pain.

"No, no," she hit her with a spell that made her open her eyes again, stopping her from actually passing out. "You don't get to do that. Now, where's the fun if you fall asleep? Crucio!"

* * *

Dumbledore had taken Pettigrew to the ministry, and they were going to put him in Azkaban, finally. However, they weren't raising the charges against Sirius, so he was still a wanted man.

Between all that mess, no one seem to realise everyone's favorite know-it-all was missing. Sirius got Ron and Hermione's wands out of the pocket of his pants and handled them back their owners, but stopped to look around for Hermione.

"Where's Hermione?" he asked, and both boys looked around searching for her aswell.

"Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked. "Is she missing?"

"What if Bellatrix...?" Ron didn't dare to finish that question, and silence followed that statement.

"Let's warn the aurors, and make them start a searching party," the headmaster talked patiently, trying not to tense the two boys that looked like they were about to loose their minds.

"How could we have forget about her!" the green eyed boy screamed. "What if she has got her- what if she has killed her!"

"Bloody hell, _bloody hell_ ," kept murmuring Ron, with his hands on his hair.

"Keep calm now," Dumbledore spoke again. "I'm sure nothing has happened to her."

"Oh sweet Merlin," Ron whispered.

"Go to bed now, we'll take care of miss Granger and Sirius."

The man hugged Harry and promised to write because after all, he was still on the loose. The shook of not knowing where Hermione was made it easier for the green eyed boy to say goodbye to his godfather.

"Albus, do you reckon Bellatrix has Hermione?" asked Sirius, concerned. "Do you know how gone she is? If she knows she's a muggleborn..."

"I reckon she might be in trouble, indeed."

"We need to find her now," McGonagall said, shaking slightly.

"Now, Sirius, I think it would be quite fitting if you use Buckbeak to run away, since the ministry is going to be here soon, due to miss Granger going missing."

"After the day I've had, I'm not even going to ask who the hell is Buckbeak."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys are thinking about the story!


	25. Does it hurt?

Bellatrix spent a few hours torturing her with the same curse, but it felt way longer to the younger witch. The first rays of sunshine were creeping through the closed window. When she felt one of them warming her face, she realised finally how long it had been since she had been taken away from her friends.

She knew Harry's wand was a few feet in front her, put in there strategically to drive the young witch crazy, making her feel she was close to freedom but would never actually got to get it. It was the perfect torture, and it fitted pretty well with the physical torture she was going through aswell.

She had given up after the first few hours, just laying on the ground and crying until she had no more tears left, waiting for the woman to get tired of her passivity and would simply kill her.

However, the deatheater was having the time of her life, and would let a few crazy laughs occasionally.

"Mama is not going to come?" she asked. She had left the girl lay in the ground in pain for a few minutes to rest, knowing if she pushed too hard she'd end up killing her, and that wasn't part of her plans, at least not until she had had enough fun.

"My mother is death," Hermione choked out, curling up into a ball.

"Oh, is she now?" she laughed again, walking up to the girl in the ground. She grabbed her hair and made her look her in the eyes. "You think so?"

"My father told me so," she really didn't want to give much information about her life, but if she kept talking with her, the dark witch wouldn't torture her, and at that moment she'd tell her anything to stop the pain.

"Your father?" she chuckled, as if she found amusing every single word that was leaving her mouth.

"You've probably got the wrong girl," she tried to get the woman back into her senses, but it wasn't working at all.

" _What_?" she let her head drop down and Hermione hissed in pain, feeling new tears coming out of her eyes. "You're saying I'm wrong? Silly girl, you're just like your mother; so pretentious, always thinking you have all the answers. Now, tell me, where's your mother?"

"My mother is dead!"

" _Liar_! Crucio!"

She screamed harder this time, the anger making the spell more painful that time.

The door slammed open and a lot of people entered the room, making Bellatrix raise the spell. Hermione let out a breath in relief seeing that people -aurors, she told herself noticing their clothes- attacking Bellatrix, but she apparated before any spell could hit her.

"Hey, dear. How are you feeling?" Mr Weasley approached her.

"Wha' you doing here?"

"The ministry told us what had happened and I came here to check on you," he got up. "C'here, you're safe now."

" _Am I_?" Her voice shook a little, feeling new tears replace the old ones. She felt herself being lifted up and into the man's arms. She couldn't feel anything anymore, her mind and body completely numb.

"Yes, dear, you are," a few tears rolled down his face when she saw the state she was at. She was actually surprised she was still alive and responding, but after all, she was Hermione Granger, and she was a really tough girl.

The girl closed her eyes, finally getting some rest from all the pain she could still feel in every fiver of her body.

* * *

She woke in a comfortable bed, her hand wrapped in others biggers than hers. She blinked a few times before turning around to see a mane of dark hair resting in the bed, close to where their hands were interviewed.

She holded tighter to his hand, waking him up from his slumber.

"'Mione?" he looked around the bed and grabbed his glasses with his spare hand and put them on. "'Mione, You up!" he wrapped her in a big hug, kissing the top of her head. She rested her head in his chest, feeling finally safe.

"What happened? Where am I?"

"You're at St Mungo’s. Arthur brought you here. Merlin, I was so scared, 'Mione... It's my fault you're here and had to go through... Through _that_ ," his heartbeat sounded fast and strong against her cheek, and she knew he was holding back the tears.

"If it's someone's fault, it is mines, okay? I stayed behind to make sure professor Lupin was alright and before I knew it, she got me."

"What? No, it's not your fault at all. Don't say that."

"Okay, then don't say it's your fault either."

He chuckled a little, knowing exactly what she doing. "Deal."

"What time is it?" she looked around, searching for a window.

"Pretty late. Ron tries to stay with you as long as he can, but Molly forces him to go home, at least at night."

"Home? School is over?" he nodded his head. "How long...?"

"Two weeks."

She stayed quiet, taking all the information in.

"Come lay with me," she ignoring the aching in her muscles as she moved over to let him some space.

"No, I might hurt you," he shook his head.

"No, you won't," still, he didn't move. "I don't want you to hurt your back sleeping in that chair. Please?"

Harry groaned but moved to lay next to her. She quickly rested her head on his chest, breathing peacefully.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, concerned.

"Surprisingly, no. I think they've given me way too many painless potions for my own good."

He laughed slightly, heart full of joy for having his best friend back.

"I love you, 'Mione."

"Love you too, Harry."


	26. Alec and The Winter's Tale

Hermione spent the rest of June in St Mungo’s, and then went to her house. Despite Molly and the rest complaining about it, they knew deep down she had to go back, so her father wouldn't case any trouble. Not that they wouldn't stop him if he did, but it was better for the short run to let things be, at least that was what Dumbledore keep repeating over and over everytime someone would complain.

On the morning of the first of July, she stood in front of her house, staring at the door, just like she always did when school was over.

She wanted to get this over with, just to lay down and rest a little. She was still feeling weak, and the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was argue with her father.

Opening the door, she found the house alone. Letting a breath of relief, she walked to her bedroom, where her trunk was already waiting for her thanks to Hagrid.

It amazed her how her room was always clean after months of no use, but never really stopped to think about it. Probably her father had started hiring cleaning service when she left, since he no longer had his personal cleaner.

Shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts, she layed in bed. It was still pretty early in the morning, but the weight of the last two months made it impossible for her to stay awake.

_'You're just like your mother...'_

_'I hate you'_

_'Crucio!'_

She woke up screaming, feeling the ghost of the pain she once felt coming back to her. The sun was starting to set, meaning it was around seven p.m. She had fall asleep through the entire day.

She looked around her room, looking for the person she knew wasn't there, but felt like she was. After all, the aurors didn't catch her, so maybe she was still...

She quickly got out of bed, putting back on her shoes. She knew she wasn't allowed to leave the house without consent, but she couldn't care less at that moment. She felt trapped, and wanted to run away to a place where she would be free from that madwoman's shadow.

Opening the front door and hiding her wand in her jean pocket, she went off without giving too much care to her father. She felt bad for leaving Crookshanks alone, but knew he'd be just fine. She, however, wasn't fine, not at all.

Hermione closed the door behind her and walked to a park that was close to her house. She sat down in one swing and started at the sky, watching how it turned from colour to colour as time passes. The brunette didn't even know she was crying and shaking at first, but when she realised so, she knew she couldn't care less.

After moments of calm, a hand on her shoulder made her jump and reach for her wand, but turned around before she did so see a boy about her age, probably a few years older, staring at her with confusion and concern.

"I'm sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Um, are you okay?" the boy asked.

"I- yes, yes."

"I'm Alexander Richson, but you can call me Alec," without stop talking, he sat down in the other swing. "Really, call me Alec; I hate when people call me Alexander, makes me feel like an old man."

Hermione laughed at that, and took a look at the boy. He had green eyes and dirty blonde hair cut short. He was tall, probably as tall as Ron if not a few more inches, and had a kind smile. Hermione allow herself to relax in his presence, still holding her wand, just in case.

"So."

"So?"

" _So_ , what's your name?"

"Oh," her cheeks went red, feeling stupid. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"Hermione? Like Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale Hermione?"

She knew after that phrase, she liked that boy. Finally, after so many years, someone knew where her name came from. "Yes!" she said, a little too excited. She realised so and her cheeks turned a darker side of red. "Sorry, you're the first person who knew that about my name and I got a little carried away."

"Don't need to apologise, Hermione," he stayed quiet for a while. "Do you need to let it all out or just some quiet company?"

The young witch was taken back by that question, unable to understand how he could have seen through her so easily when all her life she had been this quiet shy girl who didn't let out much just in case she might get hurt. And after all that, that boy in a few minutes understood her better than anyone that has tried through the years. "How did you-" her question died out. "Quiet company would be perfect."

He nodded, changing his green gaze at her to stare in front of him.

They stayed like that until the night took over the sky, changing the bright blue from little, white stars.

"I should go home," she whispered. Alec got up and offered her his hand. She took it. "Led the way, madame."

* * *

The witch spent a huge part of the rest of July outside, getting to met Alec more. He was a muggle, with muggle family, but she couldn't care less. She told him little about her life, but he didn't seem to care either. They kind of worked together, no awkward silences or uncomfortable conversations; they shared passion for books, and he could hold a conversation with her about any topic perfectly unlike all her other friends. If he was a wizard, Hermione was sure he would be the perfect Ravenclaw guy everyone would like, probably head boy and Quidditch player.

Her father didn't showed up for another two weeks, and when he did he looked paler than ever. Apparently, as he told her through gritted teeth, he was in an important dentist seminary out of the country ("Would've told you," he said, "but you weren't here"). The tension between the two of them was clear, and it blew up when he saw her coming back home with Alec.

Scream after scream was all that could be heard in the Granger house. Her father hit her, but she was not backing up anymore. With every hit, she was ironically getting stronger.

"Leave!" he screamed, pointing a finger at the door. "Leave fucking now or I'll kill you."

"I want to see you try and do it."

That was his point of no return. He pushed her to the ground and started hitting her with all the anger he had been holding back since he came back. He was so pissed he couldn't even control what he was doing.

"Get off me!" she screamed, hitting his chest as he puched her, blood already appearing from her face.

"You bitch! Don't raise your voice at me!" he stopped and got up from top of her, his knuckles hurting. He had missed a few punched and ended up hitting the floor.

It was nothing compared to Hermione, though. It was just a reminded of the day she met McGonagall, and she almost laughed at it. How pathetic, she thought, that I'm still not able to defend myself.

"If you're not leaving I am," he whispered, he tried to close his left hand but it was too painful. He had probably broken it when he hit the floor. _Fantastic_.

Her body hurt too much for her to give him a sarcastic reply, so she just layed on the floor, feeling like that eleven years old little girl again. It hurt way more than the physical pain; after what she went through with Bellatrix, a few punches and a lip cut from her father were playtime.

Shortly after he left, she did too. She walked to the playground, but then changed direction, going to Alec's house instead. He lived just down the street, and moved at the beginning of the year because his mother got a raise and had to work in a different town.

She doubted if she should knock on the door or just wait for someone to acknowledge her, but decided to do the first. Her face was still hurting, and she was pretty sure she was going to have a black eye in the morning, since she could already feel it forming.

The blond boy was the one who opened the door, and his happy, chill face changed to a concerned one when he saw her.

"Hermione? What happened?"

"My father..."

"C'here," he grabbed her by her hand gently and made her enter his house.

She looked around. "Your parents?"

"They had a date tonight," he blinked his eye at her, and she let out a chuckle. "Let's get you cured."


	27. Quidditch World Cup

Hermione was set to leave a few days after the newest incident with her father. She spent the rest of her days with Alec, only going home to sleep. Before leaving, she told him if he wanted to message her, to wait for an owl that would appear shortly after he was finished with his letter.

"An owl, really?" he laughed when she told him. "What kind of fancy thing are you into, madame Granger?" she hit him in the shoulder, making him laugh even louder. "Gonna miss your odd arse when you leave. Promise I'll write, 'kay?" he wrapped his arms around her body, putting her in for a hug that lasted way longer that she first expected, but neither seem to want to let go.

"Gonna miss you too."

And now she was in front of The Burrow. Ron was the first to recieve her, frowning his eyes at the look of the cured, but still visible bruises on her face.

"He didn't..." he murmured, anger taking over him.

"Hermione, dear! So good to see you again," Ron's mother stopped him, knowing how uncomfortable the girl got with that subject. "How are you?"

"Good, Molly."

"I can't wait for the Quidditch world cup!" Ron kept talking, grabbing her hand and dragging her inside. "Dad got all of us tickets to see the final; Bulgaria against Irland! It's going to be amazing. Wait 'till Harry finds out we're going!"

"I'm going to send him an owl today to ask his... his relatives."

"Maybe you shouldn't," said the brunette. "His uncle is really muggle-ish, if he sees an owl delivering a letter to him, he'd burn it without even reading it."

"You're probably right," she murmured, thinking of another way to reach the raven haired boy. They entered the house and greeted Arthur. "How does muggles deliver letters?"

At this, the Weasley patriarch's face lit up with excitement. "A muggle letter? Now, that's something I want to see."

Later that day, after finally greeting all the Weasleys and having lunch all together, she helped Molly with the letter. She told her about stamps, and Arthur got so passionated about it that put way too many in the letter, but she said nothing.

* * *

She _hated_ portkeys. Like, hated them more than anything. Probably not as much as she hated broken books and being afraid, but they were next in the list of things Hermione Granger couldn't stand.

Harry hated them too, and when he fell to the ground, he didn't get up just in time to throw up. Ron laughed harder than the other time they used the portkey, and helped him up.

They walked to a place full with tents, and set two in there. Mostly Harry and Hermione did, since Arthur was to fascinated examinating everything and the other Weasleys were completely lost at that kind of muggle technology.

She was glad she had a tent just for her and Ginny, because as much as she loved her friends, they were impossible to sleep with. Harry would wake up from a nightmare occasionally and wake her up aswell because he couldn't sleep (she would never complain about it though, Harry was her friend and if he needed her, she would there, even if it was three in the morning and she was damned to spent the rest of the following day sleepy and clinging to the thought of her cozzy, warm bed), and Ron would snore so hard, when she wasn't waken up by Harry, the ginger's loud breathing would do. To summarise up; she was thankful she wasn't sleeping with Ron and Harry -especially Ronald.

"Oh Merlin, I'm so happy we got a tent just for the two of us," said Ginny in a dreamy voice when she laid in her bed.

"Yeah. As much as I love your brother, I don't think I could stand sleeping with his snores as a soundtrack -I swear I can even hear him through the walls in Hogwarts sometimes."

Ginny laughed at that, not even questioning what was a soundtrack. "We need to ask dad to put a silence spell on the tent. I'm planning on enjoying this noiseless time."

* * *

After watching the match between Irland and Bulgaria -she had to stop Ron from running into the field a couple of times to get to the veelas-, they were walking back to the tents, Ron still playing with his Krum miniature toy that was limping in his hand, and Harry watching the best plays through his omnioculars.

She had a bad feeling the moment they left the field, and kept looking around for a sight of danger.

And then it happened. Chaos started to be heard, and suddenly they were surrounded by masked people matching around, levitating muggles into the sky.

Bill and Charlie left, and Ginny accompanied them. The trio was left alone in the middle of the battlefield. They looked at each other and started to run to the same place; the forest. They hid in there until Hermione felt movement in front of her. She looked there, forcing her eyes to focus on anything that could mean someone was in fact there, but she found nothing.

She looked in the pocket of her jeans for her wand to be prepared just in case, but found nothing. "I think I've lost my wand."

They searched for it in the ground, but found nothing. She felt pretty defenceless without that piece of wood in her hands, but decided it was better to stick around until everything was safe to look for it. After a few minutes, Harry looked at the sky and gasped. Ron and Hermione followed, to see a big skull with a snake-like tongue coming out of its mouth.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, and Ron's face turned white the moment he saw it.

"Bloody hell..." he whispered, putting his Krum miniature figure back into his pocket.

"Who's there?" asked a voice, coming out of the same place the movement from earlier came.

A few ministers appeared, surrounding them, their wands out and up, pointing at them.

"Who did that?" another man asked, pointing at the sky where the mark was at.

"No one," the black haired boy said.

"Whose wand is it, then?" he showed them a wand they all knew pretty well, Hermione's wand.

She searched for her wand in her pockets again, but found nothing, just like before. Oh, she was in trouble. "Tha-that's my wand, sir."

The man gave her a pointed look. "Your wand?"

"She's a muggleborn, Ludo," Arthur was walking up to them. He stood in front of the girl.

They did a spell on them and saw the last spell used in the wand was the one to cast the mark. Ludo, as Arthur had called him, looked at her as if he was trying to see right through her.

"A house-elf was found with the wand. Maybe she did it."

That draw the attention out of her, but she still felt small when the man who found her wand gave it back to her while still looking at her like he wanted to read her mind.


	28. The Triwizard Tournament

After that incident, everyone made an unsaid pact to never talk about it ever again. Now, in the train back to Hogwarts, no one dared to ask why would someone stole Hermione's wand to summon the dark mark. Not even Hermione dared to ask herself that question, because even though she probably had the answer, she knew she wouldn't like it at all. So, against her own nature, she decided to not fullfit her curiosity.

Even if it hadn't started properly, that year felt different already. Heavier. The end of third year changed things to a darker tone. People would now look at her with pity, or looked scared she might would crack at some point and go completely nuts. And Hermione didn't blame them; after all, being tortured by Bellatrix was not something people usually got over, at least not at such quick pace.

She just liked to pretend it was okay. That she _was_ okay. Because otherwise, if she'd say "I'm not okay", it'd turn into a reality, and a reality in which she was slowly losing something deep inside her was scary; it was better to pretend she was just fine -not completely fine, but the kind of fine that would mean "I'm not completely okay, but I'm kind of close to it". Yeah, that was way better than how she was feeling.

She knew it wasn't okay to bottle things up and let them be when instead she should be facing them, but it felt too heavy to confront it.

Ginny, since she had slept with her almost the entire summer, knew she wasn't okay. At least, not as okay as Hermione claimed she was. But, could you really blame her? At the age of fourteen, she was almost tortured into madness by a woman who was sent to Azkaban for doing the same to one of her friend's parents; not being okay at all was an understatement. In fact, she thought the brunette was coping way better than anyone else in her situation would.

So, when she'd woke up screaming in the middle of the night and would grab her wand thightly to point it around the darkness in the room, she would say nothing but gentle words to make her remember she was safe at the moment.

Adding to all she was going through, the nerve-wracking feeling that something truly awful was going to happen that year wasn't doing anything good to her sanity.

"Hermione?" Harry touched her shoulder and she jumped. She turned her gaze from the window to her friend and let out a breath of relief. She was safe. "Sorry, 'Mione. We talking about how strange Mr Weasley was acting about something that was going to happen this year. Did you noticed?"

"Yeah," she closed the book long forgotten in her lap and turned around slightly to face her friends. "I think there is going to be something going on this year."

"Hold on, the O.W.L.S. aren't this year, are they?" asked Ron.

" _Honestly_ , Ronald," she dropped the book in Harry's lap to be fully able to face her silly friend. "I can't believe you just asked that question. You, the one who grew in a wizard family, doesn't know when the O.W.L.S are. Unbelievable."

"They're not," he whispered his own answer.

"No, they are not," she rolled her eyes. "And I was talking about the year as a whole, not just our year. Something is definitely going to happen."

Whether it was good or bad the thing she was so sure that was going to happen, she didn't know. But, considering their luck, it would be pretty awful.

* * *

Dumbledore announced the Triwizard Tournament before the feast, and right there, the bushy haired girl knew that bad feeling was definitely about that bloody tournament. Good thing it had an age limit, or else she'd find herself having to help one of her two dumb and impulsive friends to get through it because they have decided it was a good idea to join just for some galleons.

But still, she was friends with Harry Potter, so she wouldn't be surprised at all if somehow he got selected for the tournament and end up in danger just like every single year. Considering it's been already three out of three years in which the boy was almost killed inside Hogwarts without trials involved, thinking they could have a great, calm term felt like a daydream way far from reality.

A few weeks passed before the students for the other schools came. She really played no mind, and couldn't care less about that tournament and the union of different traditions and wizard and all that useless stuff. All she wanted to do was study and be left alone with her friends.

But as always, she was right. Harry's name came out of the golbet, making him the fourth champion.

He really couldn't catch a break.

She watched with anxious eyes as he disappeared through the stairs the other champions had gone through. The disgusting feeling of sensing- no, knowing something was going to happen that rested in the pit of her stomach the moment she put a feet in King's Cross only intensified when she heard her friend's name being called out.


	29. The Cruciatus Curse

Hermione tried to like the new Defence Against the Dark Arts, she really did. He was a prestigious auror, had catched tons of death eaters through his career and maybe was a little paranoid all the time, but that only made him more safe, _right_? At least he wouldn't be tricked as easily as Quirrell was back in first year, that for sure.

In fact, things with the teacher were as good as with the rest, until he gave the Unforgivable Curses class.

Watching that poor insect being forced to do things it didn't wanted to do made her feel powerless, just like the bug felt. It was disgusting.

Hermione decided she didn't like at all that teacher who seem so promising when he used the torturing curse onto the same insect. Just by hearing the word 'Crucio', all the hairs in her body stood up, and her skin started to feel as if it was on fire.

She grabbed thightly onto the edges of her desk, watching with watery eyes as the insect twisted and moved violently. Unable to believe it, she saw herself in that bug. She saw herself back in The Shrieking Shack, twisting and screaming in pain as Bellatrix used that spell again and again on her for hours until she couldn't feel anything but the almost deathly pain a simple word could create. She started to feel again as if every single bone in her body was being broken, as if the air couldn't reach her lugs even as harder as she took in breath after breath. It was overwhelming, and painful. Way too painful. She just wanted to put an end to it quickly and-

"Stop!" she screamed after a few minutes, in which everyone in the classroom just stared at the bug with sad eyes. All stares turned to her and she felt a few ones of simphacy. She didn't notice she had started to cry until she felt a tear running down her cheek and onto her neck.

"Excuse, miss Ro- Miss Granger," Moody said, leaving the bug finally alone. He almost looked scared when he saw she was in pain, Harry noticed, hoping he would realise he had crossed the line.

If she wouldn't have been about to have a panic attack, she would have stopped to think how strange it was that he almost called her by a different lastname. But again, she was on the edge of having a mental breakdown and she couldn't care less if a teacher as disgusting as him didn't remember her name properly.

She looked back at the insect, crumbled up into itself, and a chill went down her back.

"The cruciatus curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses, is used to cause pain upon the victim," he continued with the class as if nothing happened. "It makes the person feel like all the bones in their body are being turned in the wrong place. Many who had gone through it had said they preferred death instead. It's forbidden to use that spell upon humans, as it can drive them into madness," At that, Neville moved in his chair, uncomfortable.

"Surviving the cruciatus curse without losing your head in the process is considered a milestone to a lot of wizards," he continued, his magic eye fixed in her face, examinating her.

Hermione rolled her eyes at it. She didn't want to archive such an accomplishment; in fact, any wizard who'd considered it a milestone was completely nuts. Way more out of their rocket than she was.

After that awful class, Ron and Harry and unspeakable truce to show their friend some conform. Neville stood next to her and hugged her, and she had never felt more connected to that clumsy boy she petrified in first year than she felt at that moment.

He knew the pain, at least up to an extent. He knew how that bloody curse could affect a person's life, and she was thankful for having someone who could actually understand her and be in her shoes: it made her feel less lonely, less crazy.

"We're going to have a lot of Butterbears the next Hogsmeade weekend," promised Harry, before looking back at his not-friend-anymore to give him a dirty look. They were definitely still fighting, but not until Hermione was okay.

* * *

But they didn't go out during Hogsmeade's weekend and have some butterbears all together like a couple of friends enjoying their youth. First, because Harry and Ron weren't friends anymore, apparently; second of all, because she wasn't still allowed to go out since Bellatrix escaped and could be anywhere to finish what she started; and third, because she needed to stop her friend from getting killed by something he didn't choose. Oh, and let's not forget the most important reason: he was the boy who lived, his life was nothing like a normal boy's life would be like.

So Hermione and Harry spent that day in the library, doing some theoretical practice instead of going out like the rest of the students did. The following day, they went to the room of requirements thanks to _Hogwarts: A History_ ("If _only_ you would've read the book, Harry, you'd know what this place is" she told her friend when they entered the door that appeared right in front of them, full of training tools).

"Okay, let's start with the easy one; the Accio spell. You already know what you're supposed to do, don't you?" the brunette gave him a pointed look, and smiled when he nodded his head.

They went on for the entire day, stopping only to have the lunch Dobby had brought them, despite Hermione's complains and mumbling.

"What d'you reckon the first task is going to be?" he asked when they were going back to the Gryffindor common room that night.

"I've been studying the tasks each year, and I'm pretty positive the first one it's going to be about fighting some kind of creature. In 1932, they had to fight a Chimaera, in 1958 a gigant Acromantula -disgusting, right? In 1899 it was some kind of ghoul that killed off a participant and- and that's exactly what you don't need to hear at the moment. Sorry."

"It's okay, 'Mione. I think I'm going to be just fine if we keep practicing like we did today. I can already summon a quill, the firebolt is next," he joked. "Also, I still have 'til November the twenty-fourth."

"So, a month."

"Yeah, a month."

They went through the fat lady portray, and only Ron and Ginny were there, playing magic chest. The redhead looked at her and then at Harry, giving her a shady look before continuing with the game.

"I have faith in you, Harry. You'll be okay," she promised.


	30. Dragons and Shadows

Hermione sat by the fire in the Gryffindor common room one dark and cold night of October, a lost look accompanying her sad features.

She had had another nightmare about Bellatrix. This time, she showed up at her hometown, with a death Alec by her side and a twisted smile on her face, enjoying way too much all the pain she was causing on her. She trembled at the thought. Oh, how she hated feeling so vulnerable, and how she despited that she couldn't do anything about it.

She started at her two hands, that were shaking slowly. Something, aside from the constant reminder of what that woman had done to her, had her over the edge. She had felt that way the entire year, but that night, completely alone in the common room with only the fire to light up the spooky place, made her feel especially alert.

She couldn't understand what was happening to her. It felt as if she was constantly waiting for something to happen; every second of every day, she felt like she was just standing by and waiting. What for? She didn't knew, and she hated it.

Her mind was a riddle, and Hermione just wanted to solve it to know why she was feeling the way she felt.

She was a mess, and even if she didn't like to admit it to herself, it was probably going to take a while to go back to how she used to be. If she ever got to be her old self ever again.

Maybe that feeling was just herself slowly loosing her mind. Maybe she was waiting to see herself going nuts like everyone was waiting for her to do. Maybe she was already insane, and that's why she was in the middle of the night all alone looking like a loonie. Maybe she was looking like a loonie because she was in fact turning into one. Maybe she should ask for help.

Taking a huge breath, she let go of everything, suddenly feeling much better, as if someone had put a spell on her to calm her down. Hermione stood from the fire and walked up the stairs back to her dormitory. Back in the common room, a shadow vanished when the girl left.

* * *

A dragon. A _freaking_ dragon. A dragon, as in the mythological creature. Yeah, _that_ kind of dragon.

That was what Harry was going to fight that day, with the only help of his wand.

Hermione was already out of nails she could bite, and she continued to look at the tent Harry was. Before she could stop her feet, she went in there to talk to him, knowing how the boy was feeling at that moment.

"Harry," she called out at a shadow of a skinny, short boy; only her friend matched that description.

"'Mione?" the boy asked, opening the tent for her. She looked into his green eyes (just like his mother's, people always told him) and hugged him, only stopping when she heard a flash and some heels clicking in the floor.

"Young love," a blonde woman said, looking at a magic quill that kept writting even though she wasn't talking. But of course, as Hermione realised, the quill paid more attention to what she was thinking rather than what she was saying. Merlin knows what that woman was thinking; judging by the way she was looking between the two of them, she was creating an story in her mind completely outside from reality. "How..." she stopped and looked at the quill, that seem to be staring back at her, waiting. "Inspiring."

The brunette gave her a pointed look before letting Harry go.

"Good luck. You'll do great," she told him, the feeling of wanting to leave that place growing stronger when Karkaroff entered the tent and gave her a long look, almost as if he was waiting for her to do something horrific like murder a person or something. _Honestly_ , purebloods and their prejudices.

* * *

Despite the fact that she had to remind Harry he was a wizard and therefore should be using his wand to save his arse from getting it burnt by the dragon's fire, everything went pretty well. A few scratches, but nothing too crazy to be worried about. A miracle, if you asked Hermione, truly a miracle before Christmas.

What she cared about at that moment after making sure Harry was okay, though, was that egg and how and why it was the key to the next task.

Wouldn't it be just better if the school helped Harry to get through this, so he wouldn't die before the end of the school year? Oh, _right_ , that was the logical and easy solution and Dumbledore hated those things. She rolled her eyes.

This was going to be a mess. At least, she tried to cheer herself up, now they had holidays to look forward, not the trial in February. That, she would take care of before the end of the year. Letting Harry get himself killed wasn't exactly in her plans from this year.


	31. Dates

"Dude, I can't believe we still don't have a date for the Yule Ball!" complained Ron sitting at a chair next to Harry. Ever since they started talking again, all they did was complain about the damn dance and talk about how good Viktor Krum was at literally anything they saw him doing.

"Speak for yourself," he said, a grin in his face.

"What? You got a date? With who?"

"With _whom_ , Ronald," chimed in Hermione. "He's going with me."

"You two, together?" his look was full of disbelief. "Wha- Why?"

"Because she saved my arse, basically," explained Harry.

"Yep, I deserve it. I heard the food is way better for the champions, I couldn't pass that chance," she knew she would be getting into his nerves at the mention of delicious food he wouldn't be allowed to eat.

"Better food? Oh, man, why did I chicken out with Fleur?" he put both hands in his face, covering it completely.

"Well, I have multiple theories," Ginny sat down beside Hermione.

"Look _who's_ talking, the one who can't even go to the Ball."

"Oh, but I'm going," she smiled back at his brother, enjoying this way too much.

"You got a date, too? Blimey, I'm so done."

"Who are you going with?" asked Harry, too interested for Hermione to miss it. She was definitely going to ask him about it later.

"Neville invited me when he found out I couldn't go because I'm in third year."

"Even Neville's got a date- with my sister!" Ron talked through his hands. "I'm going to die alone."

* * *

Hermione walked to the library after lunch to find Krum and his groupies surrounding him, as always. She rolled her eyes, annoyed at having another restless day in there. Couldn't he go somewhere else, so she could enjoy her free time in the best way possible; between books?

Dropping her bag in the table noisily, she gave the Quidditch player a dirty look when she gained his attention and focused on the book she had picked up earlier about dragon eggs. She was hopping she could find in there something interesting to help Harry.

After a while, she gave up. The book didn't mention nothing related to golden eggs, so she thought searching for a new one would be way more productive.

Walking up to a bookshelf about magical creatures, a voice called for her. "Hey," the Quidditch player came in, limping slightly. "Sorry about them," his thick accent sounded almost funny, but Hermione played it no mind as she was too busy seeing what he was pointing at -his stalkers.

She rolled her eyes. "If they annoy me, I can't imagine how much they must annoy you."

"A lot," he nodded his head. "I wanted to ask if you..." a few girls had started to give Hermione dirty looks pretty similars to the one she gave Krum earlier. "If you had a date for the Ball or wanted to go with me."

The brunette turned her gaze from the murderous-like girls and stared at him with her mouth open. "Yes, I'm going with Harry."

"Your boyfriend?" she rolled her eyes.

"Don't tell me you've read that article."

"No," he answered quickly. "But everyone keeps talking about it so... Well, see you around."

* * *

"Merlin, Ginny, you won't believe who just asked me to the Ball," she talked as soon as she had entered the hole to the Gryffindors whereabouts.

"Who?" all her friends were sitting by the fire, looking at her.

"Viktor Krum," Ron, who had been staring longing at the floor ever since the brunette mentioned the Yule Ball, looked up.

"Viktor Krum, as in _the_ Viktor Krum?"

"Yes. How many people do you know whose name are Viktor Krum, anyways?"

"Viktor Krum just asked you to the Ball?" he spoke, a little too loud, as some people turned around to look at the group.

"Low your voice, Ronald! And yes, he did."

"What did you said?" Harry, even though was trying to contain himself from freaking out like Ron was doing, couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore.

"No, obviously," Ginny gasped at it. "I'm already going with Harry."

"You just turned down Viktor freaking Krum!" Ginny was already standing and looking at her best friend with pure admiration in her eyes. "You're my hero, Hermione. Really!"

She laughed, shaking her head. Her friends were dumb.


	32. That's inconvenient

The Yule Ball was a mess. That was the only thought going through Hermione's mind the morning after Christmas.

She sat in one of the sofas from the common room, thinking. Harry spent all the night longing for Cho, and complaining about Neville and Ginny -if you can't even make up your mind about who you like, Harry, I'm going to leave you to mourn on your own, she told him after a few hours of standing the boy's behaviour. On the other hand, Krum kept coming up to her to talk with her, which ended in a very crazy Ravenclaw girl, who was the Bulgarian's date, to almost start grabbing her by the hair so she could him alone.

Yes, definitely a _mess_.

"Hey, 'Mione," Ron walked to her and sat down next to her. "I'm so hungry."

"Oh!" she got up and walked to her room, in which she had saved her friend a lot of food with an charm to keep it warm. She walked down and sat down again, offering him the food with a smile. "Thought you would like to taste the champions' food. I sneaked it out and put it in my bag for you."

The look he gave her made the brunette laugh out loud. "Y'know, I might kiss you right now," he said, grabbing the food to start eating it.

"Okay, let's not cross that line."

"Blimey, this is so good -and I don't even know what this is! And it's still warm," he rolled his eyes in pure ecstasy. "You really know the way to a man's heart."

She moved her head from left to right, amused to see her friend so happy about food.

"Oh man, the food was so good," during lunch that day, Ron kept comparing the food they were eating to the one Hermione sneaked out for him. It was rather annoying, specially after hearing it for the hundredth time.

"Yeah, slavery tastes pretty good, uh?"

"Oh, don't start with the spew stuff again, please."

"It's S.P.E.W.!"

"Whatever."

She rolled her eyes, and turned her attention to Harry, who was drinking from his golbet. "Did you solve the egg yet?"

He coughed, dropping all the content from his mouth down into his clothes and the table. Doing a funny face, Hermione moved her right hand slightly casting a wordless spell to clean her friend and the table up.

"I'd take it as a no," she whispered, looking Harry in the eyes.

"Um... I'm already almost on it! Like, yeah, just a few more... tries?"

"Dude, you lie like shi-"

"Language, Ronald!" the boy just rolled his eyes and continued to stuff his mouth with food. "But yes, he's right; you suck at lying."

"We're on holidays, I want to relax a little without being worried about my life."

"You're Harry Potter, you live worring constantly about your life," murmured Ron. Hermione nodded, holding back a laugh.

* * *

"A bath," whispered Harry to her back in the common room after dinner, and she raised her arm to smell her armpit. Hermione gave him a puzzled look. "No, I'm not telling you to shower, I'm saying I need to bath with the egg to know what the next task is about."

"Okay, I hope no one has overheard us because that's a hard phrase to explain out of context," she smirked, proud of her own joke. "What are you waiting, then?"

"Uh?"

"Go take that bath! The sooner we solve everything, the more free time we have."

An hour later, Harry appeared back in the common room, wearing the invisible coat.

"Almost got caught by Snape!" his voice was high piched after the shock of what could have happened to him if it wasn't for Moody.

"Maybe because you took a one hour shower?" Ron and Hermione had been waiting for him to get back ever since they helped him sneak out after dinner. The redhead had even convince her to play magic chest with him while waiting, completely ignoring her indignation everytime a piece was smashed.

"I need to stay underwater for an hour."

"You've been practising?" she raised an eyebrow. "That's why you've been gone for so long?"

"No," he walked to one of the tables to drop his invisible coat and the golden egg, stopping on it for a while because it kept bouncing back and forth and almost falling. His hair was still wet, and his cheeks were covered in a sligh red colour, whether it was for the hot bath or the embarrassment for the long minutes his two friends had spent watching him trying to keep the egg still, Hermione didn't know.

"An entire hour... That's inconvenient," she whispered.

"Inconvenient? When was the last time you hold your breath for an hour?"

"Okay, tomorrow we'll go to the library and find something," Ron said, being for once the beacon of calm within the three friends.

"Yeah, we'll find something. We always do."

* * *

It wasn't until two days later that they found the solution. Actually, it was Dobby, who was now residing in the kitchens with the other elfs -but as a paid elf, unlike the others-, that came up with the solution.

Gillyweed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. It was obvious, why hadn't she think of it before.

"What we need to do is grab a few of them and try them out."

"Okay," smiled Ron, too happy about being over with research to care about anything other than getting out of that library and hopefully, not stepping a foot in it until the new term started.

"And by trying, you mean...?" Harry asked.

"Dobby," she ignored his question. "Could you find us some gillyweed? The more the merrier."

The little house-elf fished in his clothes and got out a green looking plant. "Dobby got gillyweed for Harry Potter. Dobby wants to help Harry Potter and his friends."

They all smiled at it.

"Brilliant, Dobby!" Ron exclaimed as Hermione kissed his cheek, making his bat-like ears move with excitement.

"Okay, Harry. Are you up to a little swim by the lake?"

"Um, not really, it's too early and we're in December."

She was already grabbing both arms from her friends, Dobby by her side smiling. "Too bad. We need to see if it's going to last an hour."


	33. Underwater

Hermione woke up surrender by water. Was she in a pool? Did she fall asleep- in a pool? She gasped for air, holding thigh onto the warm body that was close to her, holding her. She looked around and was met with those round glasses she knew way too much.

"Harry?" next to him, a small, blonde girl was holding onto his other arm. She didn't understand a thing of what was happening. "What is going on?"

"You were part of the task-" he was swimming up to the wood platforms, where students from every school were looking at them. Madam Pomfrey was around the group, waiting for them to get in. The other three champions were already there, all with towels around them. Fleur Delacour, Beauxbatons champion was shaking slightly, and had bandages all around her body. What the hell just happened?

They got to the closest wood platform around Hogwarts' lake and were quickly retrieved by the students, who got them on top of it. She didn't realise she was shaking for the cold water and frozen breeze of February until a certain redhead wrapped a towel around her.

"Are you okay, 'Mione?" Ron asked her. She looked around, still shaking for the cold and completely confused.

"What happened?" it looked like she could only repeat the same question over and over, as she was trying to wrap her head around everything.

"Dumbledore called you in last night when we were on the common room and you didn't appeared after that."

"Was I in the _lake_?" she looked at the huge mass of water, trembling just by thinking of even putting a feet on it again.

"Yeah, really down. Harry didn't came up on time, but got Fleur's sister along with you."

"Her sister?" she turned around to see the girl holding a small kid in her arms. She still couldn't understand what was going on.

"They were ment to rescue the most important thing for them- well, not thing, but that's what the clue said, remember?" he got another towel for her and wrapped it around her body, pulling her in into his chest to provide some warmth.

"Merlin, I feel so dizzy," she closed her eyes a little, trying to calm down and recolect herself a little.

"I guess they put some spells on you to get you there. I can't believe they would do something like that," he whispered, as the brunette felt like she could fall asleep right there, even when everyone seem to have her eyes on her.

"Hermione," another voice sounded close, and she opened her eyes to see green ones staring at her, worried. He looked at Ron, asking wirelessly if she was okay.

"Just dizzy," his answer sounded through the entirety of his chest, and Hermione felt her head starting to hurt at the mere movement.

Harry got his towel off of him and wrapped it around her aswell, trying to give her some comfort. He hugged her too, and Hermione felt like she was being trapped between two bodies, but she found she didn't care at all.

"Okay, okay; enough," Madam Pomfrey was kneeled down in front of them. "Let me see her, boys."

Harry and Ron looked at each other before letting go, both still holding her in case she'd fall.

"Merlin, what spell did Dumbledore put on you?" she murmured when she saw her half-closed eyes. "The rest are doing just fine."

Harry frowned his eyebrows. "Then why is she still dizzy and sleepy?"

Madam Pomfrey seem to doubt a moment before answering. "It must have affected her more than the others. Some people are more prone to be affected by certain spells. I'm sure it's nothing. We'll get her to the Hospital Wing so she can rest. By tomorrow morning you will have her fine and dandy."

The boys looked at each other again, the same thought in their heads. Something about this whole situation felt off.

* * *

"I can't believe I missed Herbology!" Hermione had joined them the next day during second period, both of them immediately asking about her wellbeing. "Yes, yes; I'm fine. Did you have the decency to take notes?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "You have been in the Hospital Wing for I-don't-know-how-many-hours, and your only concern is missing a class."

"I don't even know why you're surprised, Ron" Harry smiled at his friend.

"You're right," he put an arm around her shoulders and ruffled her hair, making it look bushier than it usually did. "Our 'Mione would rather die than miss school."

She kicked him in the ribs with no force whatsoever, but the redhead got the clue and let her go. "C'mon, I was eleven, how long are you going to remind me that?"

"Always," they said at the same time, looking so much like the way Fred and George acted that she got confused for a second.

"Neville got you the notes for class," Ron said finally, calming her studious self.

"Thank Merlin someone actually care about passing school."

She approached the blonde boy, who was already sitting in the desk waiting for the class to begin. Before she could do it, she began to feel dizzy again and past out.


	34. Is This...?

After classes, Harry and Ron ran to the Hospital Wig to see Hermione, completely ignoring lunch. Seeing their friend past out that way, and Dumbledore appearing in the class to check on her was scary enough to make them tense up.

When they opened the door, they found professor Moody next to a bed. Hearing the noise, he turned around, giving the boys enough space to realise he was standing by Hermione's bed. He quickly shoved something in his pocket and limped to them.

"Ah, Potter, Weasley," he stood in front of them, giving them no chance to see the brunette whatsoever. "Good to see you."

"What are you doing here, professor?"

"Dumbledore called me to check on your friend here," he pointed with his finger behind him, but didn't move to let them see her. "I came as soon as I could."

They looked at each other, a niggling feeling in the top of their throats.

"Well..."

"Yes, yes," he walked towards the door. "I'm leaving now. Goodbye."

When the door closed, they ran to Hermione, who looked like she was sleeping. Nothing seem out of the ordinary, so why would Dumbledore ask another professor to check on a student when they're already in the Hospital Wig with Madam Pomfrey to make sure they are okay?

"What if we talk with Dumbledore? Maybe he can tell us why."

"Seems better than standing here and trying to solve things on our own."

* * *

When they reached the Gargoyle of the Headmaster's office, they stopped dead on their tracks realising they didn't have the password. It wasn't necessary, as the door opened and let them in. The ginger and the boy who lived climbed the stairs in silence, hands in their pockets.

"Ah, mister Potter, mister Weasley, how nice having you here," Ron looked around the office; being this the second time he had stepped on it (first time really, because the first time he was there, he was too worried about Sirius and Hermione to take a look at his surroundings). "How is Miss Granger doing? I heard she past out in class earlier today."

They looked at each other, questioning why would he ask if he was the one who asked a professor to see her.

"Uh, professor," talked Harry. "You sent professor Moody to make sure she was okay, why do you ask?"

The old man's face tensed a little, but within seconds he was calm again. "Ah, yes, indeed I did. My poor brain, sometimes I forget I do certain things."

"Professor-"

"Why don't you go to class?"

"But-"

"We'll talk later, don't worry."

Before they could complain, they were already outside his office. Looking at each other, they knew something was happening.

"Going to class? They're over, it's dinner time," murmured Ron.

"And what was he doing up there instead of the Great Hall with the other professors?" Harry turned around to face the door, as if he could see right through it. Sadly, he didn't.

"Harry, I'm scared for Hermione," he confessed. "What if something is actually happening to her?"

His throat went dry at the thought of losing his best friend. "I hope not, Ron."

* * *

Dragging them carefully out of his office, he closed the door and stopped to think.

The good thing about his office was that it allowed him to apparate wherever he wanted. It came in handy in situations like this one. Dumbledore took advantage of it and he apparated to the Hospital Wig, knowing Harry and Ron were still on the other side of the door.

"Merlin, Albus!" Madam Pomfrey put a hand in her chest. "You scared me to death."

"My dear Pomfrey, accept my apologies," he smiled sweetly.

"It's okay. What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to make sure nothing's happening with Miss Granger."

She looked at him strangely. "She's just exhausted. What spell did you used on her for the task? I think it has affected her more than we think."

He looked into her eyes. "I didn't do it. All the participants were sent to my office, but another teacher put the spell on them," he got his wand out.

"Who did it?" she asked, fearing for something big.

"Moody suggested he did it, since he's an auror and knows a lot of stunning spells."

They looked at the girl, then back to each other.

"Could that means he..."

"I will be very content if it doesn't, but I think checking wouldn't hurt no one."

Pointing his wand at the girl, he used a complex spell to see if there was any charm put on her.

"Albus?" Madam Pomfrey gasped when she saw the same thing as the headmaster. "Is this..."

"Indeed."


	35. Parental Figures

A few days later, Hermione was again out of the Hospital Wig. Harry and Ron didn't tell her nothing about the Moody situation, as they've decided to call it, since Dumbledore had asked them not to. They wanted to tell her, of course, but worrying her when she was already feeling better would only cause her to suffer for nothing.

Madam Pomfrey had told them she had woken up a few hours after they were kicked out of Dumbledore's office, and was perfectly fine. She however failed to mention her magic core was healing properly by the Headmaster's demands. There was no point in worrying two kids when the situation was solved... Or half way solved.

"Hey, are you practicing for the task?" after catching up with all the missing classes and homework, the first thing Hermione did was making sure her friends were okay.

"Uh."

"Well, we're going to."

"But-"

"This Saturday, after breakfast. I won't take a no as an answer," she pointed a finger at him. "And you're coming too, Ron."

The tall wizard looked up from his food. "I can't, I have to finish Snape's easy."

Hermione gasped loudly. "You haven't finished it yet? It's due to next week and we've had a month to finish it!"

Ron's cheeks turned red. "I- I kind of forgot about it."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Well, you're going to start working on it after dinner today and I will help you on Saturday after we're done with Harry."

Ron groaned, dropping his fork into the plate. "C'mon, 'Mione, why don't you just let me copy-"

Harry shook his head quickly while Hermione grew angrier.

"In case you haven't noticed, Ronald, we're in school and we're supposed to actually learn things."

"But I wanted to relax a little! I'm still trying to recover from yesterday's charms exam."

"If you want to relax, then you should have finished all your homework in time. Look at me, I've done everything that's due for two and a half months. I'm working on some extra research for Transfiguration now."

"And yet you wouldn't let me take a look at one piece of parchment."

"Ron, mate, I wouldn't suggest keep pushing that subject when she has a knife in her hand."

Blue eyes turned to look at her hands, and then into her angry face.

"Fine, I'll do it."

* * *

Before they could realise, they were on the week of exams, and the week of the third task. Hermione had spent all her free time locked down in the library, staying up until she would fall asleep. Ron and Harry had woken up just to go get Hermione out of the library to force her to have breakfast.

Studying for her exams were really taking a toll on her, she noticed. But she couldn't help, that need to be the best, to always success so she could get a 'Well done' from his father still remained inside her even after all those years. No matter how much she hated him, how much he mistreated her; she would always sneek approval and recognition from her father. And, even if she took advantage of that part she used to be so prominent in her life, she still hated herself whenever she found herself happy over getting full marks on an essay or an exam.

Because that part that told her that maybe this time things could change with her father and he would be the loving, caring paternal figure he was supposed to be, was always the small part of her that was always wrong. She didn't knew how to stop it, the feeling of pushing herself more and more each time until she'd reach the limit, but she knew it wasn't healthy at all.

Not that she could talk with her friends about it. Ron would just tell her to just stop studying so hard and worrying so much, and will most likely force her to go play a Quidditch match with him, Harry and the twins. And his black haired friend would just try to understand her, but would fail miserably. Not that she blamed him, she knew he was just that bad with feelings. Maybe Ginny was a good option, she thought a couple of times, since she was the smallest of a large family and would have to work hard to outshine the rest, but Ginny was- well, _Ginny_ , and she couldn't care less about her brothers and what they did and were doing with their lives.

So, _yeah_ , she was pretty much alone to solve that carving of approval from parental figures who definitely weren't good or proper parental figures.

Shaking her head, she turned back to her books. In just a few days it'll all be over and she could stop stressing with exams to stress herself with Harry and the last task, Merlin knows what that was. Not that she preferred the last one more, but it had became so prominent in her life, she found confort in the common feeling of dreading for her friend's life.

* * *

Before she could blink twice to readjust, Ron was lying in one of the sofas on the common room with a content smile on his face. He was happy exams were over, so happy nothing seem to bother him, not even the looks he was getting from other Gryffindors for taking and entire sofa by himself and putting his shoes on it.

Hermione rested her back against said sofa while sitting on the floor, looking at the fire. She felt weird, as if something was off. Thinking she would feel better after exams were over was a terrible _and_ stupid thought; now she had the entire of her time to worry about Harry, who was lying on the ground a feet away from her and talking to Ron about Krum. She rolled her eyes the moment she raised her eyes from the book she was reading to hear her friends' conversation.

She looked down at her friend, laughing and looking careless, as if the following day he wasn't going to participate in the third and last task of the Triwizard Tournament ( _shouldn't it be Forthwizard Tournament now, since there's four champions?_ pounded Hermione from time to time), a deathly tournament with a preocupating high rate of deaths. She did the math, she knew what she was talking about -she even made a graphic for Harry to see, but decided against to not worry him more. He didn't seem worried at all though. She wish she could say the same.


	36. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

Harry was trapped, unable to do anything but witness the resurrection of his nemesis. The pain in his scar was hurting so bad he might've past out if he wasn't in such danger.

When he came out of the cauldron in black robes, Harry knew there was no turning point from there. He was going to die that night, at the hands of the person who take away his parents. It was so unfair.

Death eaters started to show up, succeeding in making Harry feel more trapped than he fel before.

"I'm _finally_ back," was the first thing his brain could register, and it kept ringing inside his head like a mantra -he's back, he's back, oh Merlin, he's back. He laughed his creepy, kind of childish laugh, walking among death eaters.

"Milord, milord..." the woman was holding for dear life onto her arm, trying to stop the bleeding cutting her hand caused. "You promised."

"Ah, Bellatrix, _of course_."

He hated it, hated seeing the woman that caused Hermione such pain walking around free. He hated it more than he hated the snake-like man who had caused him so much suffer.

"Now that you're cured, Bellatrix," with a twist of his wand, the woman raised up as if a hand was forcing her to do so. "I would gladly like to know why you decided to hurt my child."

A lot of gasps were heard from the death eaters, followed by a low whispering. Harry, on the other hand, made no sound at all, as he was too busy trying to comprehend what that man had just said... Voldemort had a kid?

"Milord, milord..." she knelt at his feet, shaking. "I'm so sorry my lord. I didn't mean to... I'm sorry."

"Raise, Bellatrix, raise now."

She did as she was told, and stood in front of the dark lord.

"My lord..."

He pointed his wand at her. "Crucio."

As quick as she had raised, she had fallen again to the ground. She screamed, pain feeling every single fiber in her body.

Harry cringed at that. If that woman, as crazy as she was, was suffering that much, he couldn't imagine what Hermione had to go through.

After a few minutes, he lowed his wand. "I hope this is a warning to all you," he looked at his death eaters. "I hope you know, like you should have known before" he looked pointedly at Bellatrix, cuddled in a ball in the ground, "that no one is allowed to hurt my child. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yes, milord," a collective whisped was hear.

"Now, Bellatrix, we'll finish this _conversation_ later," his red eyes burned into Harry's soul, and he knew there was no going back. He was going to die like his parents did; at the hand of that madman. "At the moment, my eyes are on someone else."

* * *

Hermione felt something from the deepest part of her telling her something was wrong. She felt dizzy all of the sudden, her eyes unable to focus on anything.

She grabbbed Ron's arm weakly, getting his attention before she spoke. "Something's wrong," her voice was lower than it usually was; she felt her arms and legs shaking, as if she had no control over her body whatsoever, and her magic was getting out of control as well.

"What's wrong, 'Mione?" his concerned, carring voice didn't see to help her calm down at all.

"Harry! Where's Harry?" she looked around, hoping to find him close to her, and safe.

"He's still in the maze."

 _No, he's not_ , Hermione thought, but stayed quiet.

It all was a blur now; her eyes had completely given up, not allowing her to see what was happening two feet in front of her even if she used all her forces to try and see, her ears couldn't regist any sound because a loud ringing was taking all her attention, and her lungs weren't working hard enough to help her breath properly, however her chest was raising up at a faster pace than usual, probably trying to get some air inside her body before she'd past out. She started seeing black dots in her blurried stare, and a tug from inside told her things were definitely not okay, not at all.

Hermione looked around once again, to check if Harry was there and to see if someone else was as disturbed as she was, but that didn't seem to be the case. Everyone seem happy and excited to see who would win the Triwizard Cup, everyone except her. People around her were talking carelessly, but she couldn't focus on any word they were saying because of that ringing sound still disturbing her earing.

"Something is wrong," she repeated, trying to focus on the exit of the maze, praying to see Harry exiting it with the cup -oh, _screw_ that bloody cup, she just wanted to see her friend well and alive.

"Oi, 'Mione, you alright?"

She didn't answered, instead just tightened her hold on his arm and rested her head on his shoulder, trying to stay still. She took deep breaths trying to ground herself. Everything was moving around her; she felt dizzy and would have probably thrown up if she would have had the strength to do so.

She closed her eyes and fell to the ground, feeling as weak as she had ever felt. It was as if her magic has been drained out of her body, and her strength had banished completely. She felt so empty, full of nothing other than a strange sensation in her body, the same uncomfortable feeling she had been feeling the entirety of the whole term. This time it was different, though. She could swear she had felt that once before, but couldn't quite put her finger on when or where she had.

The brunette tried to open her eyes, but failed. She knew she was lying on the floor, but couldn't seem to be able to do anything about it. Every order she was sending her body to move or react was being ignored completely. She past out hearing Ron and Molly screaming her name, begging her to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A present for you, since it's my birthday. Enjoy!


	37. Owl Me Back

Harry was angry, to say the least. After the first few weeks back in Privet Drive number Four, he was already getting used to the vague answers, but definitely not to Hermione's complete lack of response. Even if her father intervened and didn't let her owl him back, she always found a way to outsmart him and get her way. That was what she always did: put all her thoughts into something and succeed at it almost instantly.

So, after the first few days, he started to get worried. Something must have happened, he kept thinking whenever Hedwig returned with the letter he sent still attached to her leg; something had _definitely_ happened. That didn't stopped him from sending even more letters, though. He already knew Ron and Sirius were dead ends, but Hermione hadn't said a word to anyone (including the Weasleys, as Ron told him in a letter, the only letter filled with actual information he received the entire summer - _"Haven't hear of her, Pig always returns with the letters I send her. We are going to check on her soon, don't worry"_ , was what he told the green eyed boy).

He had read the letter way more times than anyone would ever read something without being considered a warning of going completely bonkers, maybe the same amount of times Hermione had read _Hogwarts: A History_. Still, he didn't know what to do. He was worried for his friend. What if Voldemort had kidnapped her? What if he had _killed_ her? What if she was in real danger and no one was trying to do something about it? No matter how many times he showed his concern for Hermione, every reply was a vague, do not worry.

Do not worry? Those three simple words burnt inside his brain, with the same intensity than his scar did back when Voldemort touched him at the end of last year's term, when he resurrected. How could the expect him to be calm when he didn't know if his best friend was okay? He was going to have a few words with all of them when he was certain Hermione was perfectly fine.

Soon, all that worry was turned into anger. He was pissed at Ron for not saying anything and showing no concern at all for his best friend, pissed at Sirius for being so vague and short in all his replies -if he was lucky to grasp a few words out of his quill as a reply, and he was pissed at Hermione.

She must have forgotten about them, about _him_. Maybe that Alec -he hated that name the more he thought about him- was way more interesting than his mental health, maybe she wasn't coming back to Hogwarts and was going to live the rest of her days with _stupid_ Alec living a perfect, muggle, _stupid_ life.

Whenever those thoughts got into him, he would get up from his bed to walk around the room in circles. It was dumb, having such thoughts about Hermione. She was his best friend, the reason he got through all the trials last year and was still alive to tell; if she hadn't replied yet, she must have had a good reason. At least he hoped she did.

That didn't stopped him from sending another letter, the first and maybe last letter he was going to send her before the hearing in August.

_**I've just been attacked by Dementors and I might be expelled from Hogwarts. I want to know if you are okay, Mione. Owl me** **back if you can.**_

_**Love you.** _

Harry hopped that adding the expelling part would trigger something in her and would make her finally answer, because bloody hell, he was indeed worried, and also angry at everyone else's lack of it. Hermione was his best friend, and he needed her, now more than ever, because Voldemort was back and- and Voldemort was _back_ , that was really all he could think of as he wrote that letter. Voldemort was back, and Cedric was death. Cedric... Merlin, he really needed to talk with Hermione unless he wanted combust in so many unhandled feelings eating him from the inside.

After sending Hedwig off, he heard noises in the kitchen. It couldn't be the Dursleys, they had left not so long ago.

He got his wand, still not snapped in half thanks to Dumbledore, and walked to the door, opening it.

"There goes nothing," he murmured to himself.

* * *

He made it Grimmauld Place that same night, Hedwig still gone to send Hermione his letter. It all was a mess in there, and all he could focus on was why Hermione wasn't there when every single person was in there already. And Sirius. Oh, _Sirius_ **, how much he had missed him. Even if he was angry at him for his replies, he was his family anyways.**

Hedwig welcomed him the next morning with a letter she dropped into his head, gaining a few looks. To his inmense surprise and happiness, Hermione had replied. Of course, if getting expelled was involved, she would step on.

**_"Sweet Merlin, Harry, are you okay? I was kind of worried you hadn't owled me this entire summer, but thought you might just needed some time to yourself after everything that happened, so I didn't give it much of a thought and decided to give you some space until you were ready. I was still worried, though. You know me, I'm always worrying._ **

**_Blimey, I thought something really bad had happened! No one was owling me a thing and I couldn't barely leave my house -I'll tell you everything when I see you. Hope it's soon, by the way._ **

**_Not sure what happened, but please, stay calm! Everything is going to be just fine, and if not, I'll find a way to get you out of this mess. Is Dumbledore already solving all this? I hope he is, or else I'll take matters into my own hands. You already know I'm not someone to mess with, so don't worry, everything's going to be okay._ **

**_Please, tell me you have left that hell of a place already and that you are somewhere safer, and far away from those muggles of yours. Not going to tell you to behave and to not use magic, I already know you know not to. Still, please, don't put yourself in danger, okay? Take care._ **

**_Love you,_ **  
**_Hermione."_ **

"Hermione finally answered!" he said after reading the letter a second time, looking at Ron.

A few heads turned his way. "Hermione replied?" asked Tonks, her pink hair slightly covering her face.

"Yes," he nodded his head, passing Ron the letter. "She said she didn't receive any of my letters- that's weird."

Mrs Weasley shared a look with Tonks, and then smiled back at him, through they both seem tense. "Finish your breakfast, Harry."


	38. You Guys Flew A Car To Get To Hogwarts

That day felt weird enough without having half of the people who were usually in Grimmauld Place gone. After breakfast, Harry sat down with Ron in their shared room, accompanied by the twins and Ginny. They read the letter and started brainstorming why Hermione was cut of all communication with them. They all came to the same conclusion; his father had something to do with all that, and it angered Harry to no end.

They sat down in Harry and Ron's room again after having lunch, too happy about not being ordered to clean or decontaminate a room or object to complain about the lack of activity.

"Where d'you reckon everyone has gone?" Ron asked from his bed, a hand in his stomach after eating too much. The smile in his face seem to show he didn't care at all.

"Who knows."

There was sudden movement in the first floor, and the portrait of Sirius' mother screamed: "Finally! Merlin, finally someone _worth_ to step a feet in this house!" Sirius was also heard, screaming at the portrait to shut up yet again.

They all looked at each other, knowing someone has come in. Who would it be to be considered good enough by that crazy, pure-blood supremacist woman?

Going down the stairs, Harry saw her best girl friend in the entry, greeting Mrs Weasley.

"Hermione!" Ron screamed, pushing Harry out of the way to embrace the girl. "Blimey, I was actually scared something've happened to you."

"Oh, Ronald, it's such an honor to see you actually care about other things that aren't food," she teased, hugging the boy with a smile. She opened her eyes and looked at Harry, who smiled. "Harry!" the redhead let her go. "How are you?"

"Good," he slurred, embracing the girl who was waiting for him with open arms.

"You really suck at lying, Potter."

After Hermione greeted the rest of the Weasleys, they walked to the kitchen and sat down around the table so they could have some tea. All eyes seem to be on the brunette, some with happiness to finally see her and others examinating her. Her eyes, however, were on Harry.

"It's going to be okay, y'know?" it was crazy how those five words could affect into calming a bit of his anxiety. He grabbed her hand from the table and squeezed it.

"I hope so."

Dumbledore came by during diner, not giving Harry a second glace before asking Hermione some time alone to discuss something. Judging by his rush, it was serious.

The twins' earing devices didn't help, since Hogwarts' Headmaster had put silencing charms on the room him and Hermione were at with Mr Weasley. But, even if they'd have helped, they wouldn't have heard much since Molly came in and forced everyone to go to their bedrooms.

Hermione, on the other side of the room, looked at both men who seem to have a silence conversation with their eyes.

After a few minutes of sitting down in a chair waiting patiently, she finally spoke. "What did you wanted to tell me, professor?"

The hidden conversation was cut then. They faced her, and Mr Weasley gave her a reassuring smile.

"Well, Miss Granger, I actually wanted to ask you something," the old man talked calmly, his colourful robes making him shine through the poorly lighted room. "I was hopping you would come to Mr. Potter's hearing to give testimony on his behalf."

The girl frowned her eyebrows. "I'd love to help Harry, but why me?"

They both seem to be dreading that question. Arthur cleaned his voice, gaining her attention. "We have been thinking, and we agreed you would be the... most suiting choice."

"Most suiting choice? What does that even means?"

"Well, between ex-convicts who are still on the loose, rejects from the Black family, Hogwarts students whose reputations aren't that good and werewolves, you seem like the best choice out of The Order."

"But I'm also a Hogwarts' student," she replied, still not convinced by this. There was something fishy about that conversation.

"The best Hogwarts student, if I may add," Dumbledore raised from his chair and walked around the room, hands behind his back. "You're the brightest witch of your age, and that title, added with your impeccable behaviour during school and having the best grades a student has had in a very long time makes you more than suitable for defending Harry in the hearing."

"What about you, professor? Aren't you going to be there?"

"I most certainly will, my dear. I've already reached out for another person to testify."

She still didn't see the logic in all that.

"I'm a muggleborn," her voice sounded more like a question. "Wouldn't that affect somehow on the way they look at me?"

"To be honest with you, miss Granger, it most certainly will. But despite who you are and whose family you belong to," _why can't he just say I'm a muggleborn?_ she thought, "you're still brilliant. That would prove a point to those who think you are something you're not."

She looked at the headmaster for a few seconds, trying to decode his cryptic message, as she always did when she spoke with him. "Okay," she nodded her head, not really convinced. She wouldn't turn down a chance to help her best friend, no matter how weird the request seem to be.

"Ah, good decision, miss Granger. I hope this stays a secret between the three of us."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm going to tell Harry," she didn't meant it to sound so harsh, but she wouldn't keep something so big from Harry, especially not when he was directly involved.

Dumbledore looked as he was excepting her to say it. "I guess Mr. Potter should be allowed to know it."

"Thanks, professor, Mr. Weasley."

"My my, we spent the summer out of the Burrow and we're back at formal names?" the redhead smiled, still looking proud of the girl's choice.

"I'm sorry, Arthur."

"Go back to your room, dear. I'm sure everyone's waiting for you."

As soon as Hermione climbed the stairs, she was met by a great mass of ginger hair. Between all that redness, Harry's raven hair stood out the most. She was bombarded by question of all kind, and the brunette felt dizzy from all those people talking.

"I need to talk with Harry," the Weasley siblings shut up, waiting for the conversation to begin. "Alone."

They all groaned, and Ron looked at her with a pout in his face.

"But, 'Mione..."

"Alone, Ronald," she put her hands in her hips, making it clear there was no discussion. He gave her another pout. "Okay, fine. But" she interrupted the boy, who was already walking up to them, "just because I know Harry would tell you the moment you're both alone."

Dragging Harry to a room and waiting for Ron to join them, she spoke barely on a whisper, knowing the Weasleys were outside trying to hear their conversation. "Dumbledore wants me to testify for you on your hearing."

The boys' eyes opened so big she was for a moment afraid they might fall off. "You? What- _why_?"

"I know!" she cleaned her throat and lowered her voice again. "He said it's because I'm a really good student and have a good reputation unlike, well, everyone else."

"So, I have a bad reputation?" asked Ron, sounding offended.

Hermione looked at him with a Duh face. "I think you've forgotten you guys flew a car to get to Hogwarts and got caught by muggles when you were _twelve_ , and left the mess for the Ministry to solve."

Ron shut his mouth, and didn't argued back. "Okay, that makes sense."

"Do you want me to?" she asked Harry.

"Want you to, what?"

The witch rolled her eyes. "To testify in your hearing."

"Of course. If you're there, I'll feel more safe. I'm actually relieved Dumbledore asked you to."

"It'll be okay, Harry, I promise."

Finally, after he received that Howler, he asked the question out loud: "What do I do if they expel me?"

"I'll go with you to another school. And I know for a fact Ron would follow you in a heartbeat too," the ginger boy nodded his head. "Whatever happens, you have us. You're not alone."

Harry smiled. Because for the first time in a long time, his stomach didn't drop when he thought of the hearing, and because he knew he had two best friends who would be there for him. He wasn't alone.


	39. Ten Galleons In A Fountain

Harry woke up pretty early in the morning. Mrs Weasley had put him his trousers and his best T-shirt at the end of his bed, both perfectly ironed. Ron was still asleep in his, his mouth open. Putting his clothes on, he walked out of the door and down the stairs, following the noise he could hear coming out of the kitchen.

He was greeted by Tonks, Lupin, Hermione and Mr Weasley, all dressed up. Mrs Weasley was standing, fixing food for everyone.

"Harry!" the old redhead exclaimed. "Breakfast! Sit down. What do you want?"

The limp in his stomach got stronger. The hearing was really going to happen in a few hours. "Toast."

He sat down next to Hermione, and took a look at her. She was wearing a green dress, and was eating her breakfast -toasts as well- slowly, lost in thought. Noticing his stare, she turn her head and smiled at him. "How are you?"

He looked down at his t-shirt, ironing with his hand an invisible crease just to calm his nerves.

She gave her a sympathetic smile before Mrs Weasley put a plate in front of him and then walked to stand behind Hermione. She conjured a brush and past it through her hair, complaining under her breath. In the time Harry had eaten his toasts, Hermione was in a pair of braids. She looked really good without mops of hairs covering her delicate factions.

After Mrs Weasley was done, she walked to Harry, doing the same. Halfway through her tries to tame his hair, she exclaimed: "You two and your untamed hairs!" waking up Tonks, who was resting her head in the table. When she finally gave up with his hair, the pair got up and followed Mr Weasley.

Traveling by subway was already annoying without a wizard who didn't knew about how muggle currency worked. Hermione took his hand in hers when they entered the train, and didn't let go. Harry felt awkward, knowing his palm was sweaty, but she didn't seem to either notice or care.

After the phone cabine turned into an elevator -the two teens looked at each other in disbelief-, they put on their badges and walked to the Ministry.

Reaching out Arthur's office was an odyssey on its own. Harry was starting to feel a little dizzy, his heart beating fast and hands sweating even more. He kept thanking Merlin for having Hermione by his side, because he knew if it wasn't for her, he would have past out in the elevator.

But tension didn't stop there. Instead of waiting for the hearing in Arthur's office to calm down a little, they had to run to another place underground -well, more underground that Mr Weasley's windowless office.

Harry entered the place alone. Instead of seeing Amelia Bones, the first thing he saw was the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.

"You're late."

"I know, but-"

"Now the accused is _finally_ here, let's begin."

That was a witch hunting. No, a wizard hunting. Scratch that, that was a Harry Potter slaughtering, and all he could do was sit in that chained chair and take it all. He was going to throw up.

Thank Merlin, Dumbledore came in to save the day. He called in Mrs Figg, but all hope was shattered when Harry saw how little they cared about her and what she was saying.

"If that was _all_ , Dumbledore..."

"No, it's not, Frudge," he stood from his chair beside Harry and walked to the door, opening it before Percy could get up and open it. "I call Miss Granger, who will testify as a witness."

In between the benchs, a few people tensed up when they heard her name, and Dumbledore smiled at it. Harry missed it, feeling extremely happy and hopeful that Hermione was there again. Hermione always solved everything, she definitely could solve this. At least, Harry hoped so.

The person standing by the Minister's side interrumped Hermione, who was talking about the dementors and their dangers; "You really think dementors were in a muggle town, then?" The toad-like woman dressed in sickening pink asked.

"No, I don't," she got up and faced her. "I know -and claim so."

"Dementors, with muggles? You must be going crazy, young lady," a few gasps were hear after that statement, but Hermione played no mind. That woman really got her in her nerves with just a few words. That was pure talent right there.

"I think the only one going crazy is the ministry, as it seems to be completely fine with such dangerous creatures walking among muggles, as its only focus is a boy trying to do his best," even more gasps. "Shouldn't your _highness_ right here be solving why are dementors, that are supposedly under the Ministry control, on the loose instead of wasting his precious time judging a boy for doing the correct thing?"

His face grew even redder. "The dementors _are_ under the ministry control."

She smiled. "So, are you telling me the Ministry, fully in control of the dementors, let a bunch of them leave Azkaban to kiss two teenagers? Sounds concerning, Mr. Frudge, you should definitely try to solve that case."

He groaned. "We will _not_ do such thing."

Again, she smiled. "So, the Ministry, who is supposed to look after all the wizards and witches in Britain, can't research on dangerous creatures that can kill both wizards and muggles -as we have seen in this hearing with Harry? The Ministry will not do anything about it? That a really bold statement; imagine if the media knew about this," she said the last part in a low voice, teasing Frudge.

"Miss Granger-"

Amelia Bones put a hand on his arm, and whispered something that sounded like "You know who she is, be careful."

The woman in pink then got up from her seat, a smile still dancing in her tooth-rooting sweetly face. "So, you'd swear on, let's see... Your magic, that that boy over there is innocent?"

"In a heartbeat."

They all waited for something to happen, examinating her features up close, but nothing did. The unstanable woman flushed around and sat down again, a few people staring at her as if she had gone crazy.

"Something else to say, miss... Granger?"

"Well, Frudge, I really think there's nothing left to say; in fact, I think there is no real need for us to be here today. After all, Harry was just trying to save the last alive relatives he have left; the only family he has. Is it really a crime for a boy who had already lost a lot for the Wizaring World, to also loose his last chance of having a family?" a few people nodded at that, and Harry looked at his shoes to try to not show his smile. "Last year, we were told at Hogwarts by the same minister standing right here in front of us that we should always be brave ought lives be on the line. Harry just did the right thing, _again_ ; he should be considered a hero, not an outcast nor a criminal."

"Does anybody disagrees with miss Granger?" asked Dumbledore walking around the room, searching for the people who would most definitely vote against Harry because of their affiliations, seeing them all twisting and looking around uncomfortable, scared of speaking. "As the lady here said, I think there is no need for us to be here today."

"Cleared of all charges," whispered the minister, looking defeated.

She smiled, walking side by side with Dumbledore outside the room. Harry wrapped her in a hug the moment he had the change.

"Since when did Frudge said something so inspiring?" he asked, ammaused by her capacity to solve everything.

"Since never, but it was such a great line, I knew he'd like to take credit for it."

He smiled, and hugged her again. When they separated, he kissed her cheek and grabbed her hand. Dumbledore was already gone.

"Where are we going?"

"To throw ten galleons in a fountain, of course."


End file.
